so the laws she introduced had a header that read whereas it is the mission of the american legislative exchange council to advance jeffersonian principles of free markets limited government federalism and individual liberty. nice words but if thomas jefferson was alive today and read alex's proposed tax loopholes for rich people and corporations he'd barf or declare another revolution so here is state representative bergen who was handed legislation written by corporate interests at alec to reduce their own taxes and she turns around introduces that legislation into the florida state house with no changes as if it was their own idea the week language still in the top her office discovered the screw up they withdrew the legislation really quickly and reintroduced it without the alec mission statement. it was too late the group common cause sought and blew the whistle you know it's becoming increasingly clear what's going on in our country now that the supreme court has given corporations personhood rights and said that money is speech through super pacs and think tanks like alec we elect representatives

sort of shadow we mr eous organization called alec and that of course stands for the american legislative exchange council which meets in arizona it's comprised of state legislators and corporate executives who get together and quite literally you write bills behind closed doors that the state legislators then take back to their home state present as their own and then the legislatures vote on that and this is known as model bills yeah i don't foresee that you've got something that we see a lot and particularly do you know the occupiers of the people who are participating today take. you know have a problem with exactly the type of legislation that has been pushing. absolutely what you see from alec is a very far right wing pro corporate agenda and in many ways it exemplifies the kind of backdoor dealing there i think a lot of activists really want to highlight is an example of the like has proposed a lot of privatizing of public schools they're also there one point put forward a state bill that would allow for the use of lethal force if somebody entered your home that bill was associated with the n.r.a.

making contact with which legislators and what issues are being pressed but because american legislative exchange council is organized as a nonprofit as a charitable organization these legislators can attend their events hobnob with obvious go out and party even be reimbursed for their hotel and transportation they never have to disclose because you know it's an out of state organization that organized as a charity so i think a lot of people. ignore knowledge for that very reason because they hadn't been able to have ignored state lobbying laws for so long interesting something like a shadow a lobbying group just under a different much more. easier to swallow name now right now what accounts for the renewed focus on this group why is that in occupy wall street protests and i was ninety cities is pretty huge why this attention now. well i think that there are two things that happen simultaneously one there's this kind of consciousness on what many people on the left that no matter who you elect and what happens in government there are very powerful institutional forces that are always crashing back that a

the coke brothers are big funders of the american legislative exchange council, another group supportiveand engaged of scott walker and the american legislative exchange council had their national conference down in arizona and it was there that jan brewer just days after scott walker had come down started to lay out the bare essentials of the agenda for taking on unions. a lot of connection here. >> a lot of connection. a director at the goldwater institute writes, the environment, the climate that we face in arizona is much more receptive to these kinds of reforms than wisconsin is. arizona, of course, is already a right to work state. does that make it easier for these laws to get through? >> i'm afraid it does, ed. and one of the things that made the fight back in wisconsin so effective was that even though governor walker only targeted some public sector unions, those unions that weren't targeted, police and firefighters, stepped up to support their fellow trade unionists and very quickly the steel workers and other private sector unions came in. in arizona, many of those unions don

shut down the corporations and calling on supporters to protest companies tied to the american legislative exchange councilwhich they say sponsor harmful laws including immigration measures in arizona. >>> president obama and first lady michelle obama will host a dinner honoing iraq war veterans and fallen and families n december of last year the u.s. officially ended operations in the middle eastern country after eight years of fighting. >>> and the spring around the corner the cherry blossom fest val is -- festival is almost here. tomorrow national ain't national dignitaryies will preview the event. it commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry blossom trees frojapan to the nation's capital. >>> weather is going to be a big issue. here lynette. >> march 20th, the first day of spring and spring like thunderstorms down to the south and west of us for today. this is the big storm that we have been watching and we are getting snow on the northern side of this into the upper midwest back over into the northern plains. and we have a severe side as well, we really have been watching across the area. here's the

. >>> occupy organizers are calling on supporters to protest companies part of the american legislative exchange counciland claim they sponsors harmful laws such as immigration laws in the state of arizona. >>> in washington the house transportation committee wants to find out what could be learned from the tragedy to make cruise line industry safer. >>> they plan to draw more tourist into the inner harbor a ripley's believe it or not is coming. it is scheduled to open in the light street pavilion. >>> baltimore pub p like and middle high school focuses on several areas of design. sherrie johnson is live with more on the school and what they have to offer and students are taking advantage. >> reporter: we are here in north baltimore at the baltimore design school. this is a new school just opened up here in the fall of 2011. we are actually here in the art classroom right now. this is the first school in maryland to actually focus on design. now they have three areas of specific focus. including fashion design, architecture and graphic design. now again, the school opened in the fall of 2011. and they s

laws the co-sponsor of the law was a member of the right wing think tank known as the american legislative exchange council or alec which gets much of its funding from the koch brothers the koch brothers who diverted enormous amounts of their billions of dollars to right wing causes like alec the tea party and oil industry anti climate change pseudo science they themselves have operated under the radar of the mainstream media despite being some of the most influential operatives in the republican party so while we look back on what grassroots activism is capable of in wisconsin the silent war continues whether it's radical anti immigration laws and arab zona alabama and tennessee or requiring the unemployed to take drug tests in florida or selling off state owned prisons to for profit corporations like c.c.a. in ohio and a half a dozen other states there are still a lot of troubling events unfolding all across america. so let's not think of the uprising in wisconsin as a victory let's think of it as a stepping stone we still have a hell of a lot more work to do from coast to coast to protect the middle cla

compete plus through shadow corporate think tanks like alex the koch brothers funded american legislative exchange council which lobbyists and corporate c.e.o.'s are now literally writing our laws and handing them off to state legislators to be passed as it is regardless of what we the people have to say as a result of all this theft our equality has been stolen to we now have wealth inequality levels in america not seen since before the stock market crash in one nine hundred twenty nine and in return for stealing all this stuff from us the rich have given us a long list of social ills as kate pickett and richard wilkinson at the equality trust in the u.k. discovered countries with higher wealth inequalities have higher wealth inequalities have higher rates of social ills and here's where the us ranks way he appear at the top being both wealth inequality and not surprisingly social ills so what do we gotten from them well things like drug abuse teen pregnancy mental illness violent crime obesity mistrust of others you know i wish the rich were only stealing candy from children but the truth is they've bee

silvano let's talk about the occupy movement the koch brothers for a minute here the american legislative exchange council elec alec is this weird group that's been around for a couple of decades pretty much nobody knew about it until they got exposed largely by i think the center for american progress in the fog's research be they have these twice annual meetings where corporations pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit next to state legislators state senators and state representatives who pay anywhere from twenty five to one hundred bucks a membership dues and they're funded ninety eight percent of their total funding comes from corporations corporate trade groups and corporate foundations and they they sit around and come up with model legislation which the legislators and well over ninety percent republican take back to their states nader deuced everything from the arizona anti immigration law to the wisconsin anti-union laws to the you know the let's knock people off the voter rolls was that but it disenfranchise five million people seems to me that this is alec is the poster child for c

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 so who are these guys and talk more broadly about the symbolism of groups like this and their role in u.s. politics. well there's a trade organization comprised of some of the largest companies in america and what they basically act as is more or less word to shadow government they set up legislation to be distributed to corrupt lawmakers across the country so that you see this seem entirely worker anti consumer bills coming up in state after state the basic fact is some of these corrupt politicians believe in outsourcing so much they outsource their own stupid ideas and it's not a democracy if it doesn't matter who i vote for are going to get the same special interest written legislation of matter who ends up in office how can we possibly call this freedom how can we call democracy so i think that really strikes at the heart of what odds by wall street is talking about as wel