talk about it a lot on the show but still it is people do you know discovering it the american legislative exchange council what is the word to come from shares of the american legislative exchange council is basically sort of a why organization connecting american legislators mostly conservative legislators with sort of corporate benefactors and other people who want to push legislation nationwide so basically you have this group they have about a third of state legislators so they have literally hundreds of legislators it within their network and what they do is they get some of their corporate sponsors a corporate board members to write legislation the template that template bill they might chop it to a guy in the state of florida and then someone in state of wisconsin want to do the same but also want to introduce the same bill is that of new york obits that a look slightly different some of the words will be different it is basically the same template written by a lot of the same corporate funders of the group so you know i think most people think that they vote for a state representative and a state

all about where they came from sure well there's this thirty year organization of american legislative exchange council i guess it incorporated as a nonprofit but actually this. self lobbying front basically a large fortune five hundred corporations from koch industries and peabody coal to mcdonalds and eighteen tea they paid sponsorship fees and they gain access to these alec conferences where they get together with state lawmakers state senators and state representatives from across the country to write model legislation and almost always it's a giveaway to the corporate benefactors of alec and although this organization has lasted two or three decades it's gain a lot of prominence in the last year because republicans made some of the largest gains at the state level in the entire republican party history in two thousand and ten so now instead of republican primaries lost out is the key factor lawmaker from the last bits of florida so it's a amazing so how did alec then go across the atlantic. well it's an interesting history in one thousand nine hundred seven after the labor party on the u.k. made s

the american legislative exchange council or alec is an extreme right wing membership organization comprised of state legislators and powerful multinational corporations including the corrections corporation of america. is the most active. anti immigrant. and is on its. russell pearce like c.c.a. he's an alec number one with obscure ties to national white separatist neo nazis. during an alec meeting c.c.a. and pearce crafted a model legislation that became almost word for word arizona's s.b. ten seventy. nine and as long as they feel they can change this so these four days. months or even years suddenly the new copy cat was trotting out across the country for something. so actual how does alec get away with this. very easy baby have a lot of interest in sight of their own organization their membership organization that is comprised of big corporations not only c.c.a. not only for profit corporations we're talking the likes of. wal-mart for example we're talking the likes of exxon philip morris big corporations that have an interest in some aspects of the corporate legislative process as we c

one of the groups i follow in my film peter plays the american legislative exchange council alec and they draft legislation that is conveniently made for ations and handed off tuesday . that religious extremist this is only kinda like this year anyways because of the protests in its carlson and the protests in cincinnati. member of l o. o over eight hundred documents of three religious leadership he reached out to the out demonstrators and i believe you're a positive change of heart and so once you're out there you don't know ripples you're creating i think this is turning into a title yet john very very briefly from your point of view how long will it last. i think this is going to be going through we're going to go through twenty twelve elections and. the democratic party or through their actions that look to co-opt for this and are going to find a lot of resistance. there was john wellington and is filmmaker and contributor to the post john thank you very much indeed. moving on now the u.n. human rights office have put the death toll in syria two thousand nine hundred people since

many of the bills are supported by the american legislative exchange council, an arm funded by the kochthers machine. joining me now, ari berman, author of "the gop war on voting" and "rolling stone." author of "herding donkeys: the fight to rebuild the democratic party and american politics." if you want people to vote, if you want 100% turnout, we make it easier for them. we don't want that. the media doesn't want it. they want it contained in one little day where they can report it. they don't like this early voting. make it one national holiday if we want to make it easier for people to vote. >> republicans really didn't want people who might vote for barack obama to vote in 2012. that's why we saw 38 states primarily controlled by republicans introduce legislation and more than a dozen states pass legislation designed to impede voters at every step of the process. as you mentioned, the voters that will be impeded, they're young voters, minorities, low income voters. they're the core of the obama coalition, they're the coalition of the ascendant as they call them. republicans don't

network they even created alec the american way legislative exchange council or corporations write laws so the bought off republican pot lawmakers can introduce those laws in a state legislatures and so as jefferson predicted so long ago the cycles of time have rolled around and again we are confronted by the struggle between the powerful selfish few and the many who simply want freedom and it good life. reagan's cotta revolution is alive and well and you are fighting against it today learn this lesson because you will win this struggle if you stay united and stay committed it's not going to be easy the powers that be will not just relinquish their stranglehold on power they have the money they have the power and they often like to brag even having guns but the one thing they don't have that you do is a truly righteous cause as god told his peaceful revolutionaries when he confronted an entrenched colonial power with no moral authority and hell bent on ignoring the sands of time first they ignore you then they ridicule you then they attack you then you win. keep it up and you will win t