An appeals court in Arizona ruled this week that a coalition of racial justice groups can pursue a lawsuit against 26 Republican state lawmakers accused of breaking Arizona’s open meetings law at a 2019 policy summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is a powerful pay-to play forum that brings together hundreds of conservative legislators with far-right activists, corporate lobbyists and other groups to create conservative policies for state legislatures. Many of these policies are passed into law. The Arizona ruling is a victory for racial activists who have long opposed ALEC sponsored legislation that they believe disproportionately hurts communities of color. safeguarding corporate powerWhite supremacy.
A unique state open meetings law in Arizona provided an opening for the activists to challenge the 26 lawmakers who attended the 2019 national ALEC summit held in central Arizona — and test ALEC’s controversial policymaking process in court. The lawsuit claims that enough legislators from five Arizona state legislature committees attended the ALEC Summit to constitute a “quorum,” or the minimum number required to conduct official business, and make decisions.
Deliberating and drafting “model bills” at the ALEC summit — a process designed to “imitate” the actual legislative process — is essentially the first step toward introducing legislation in the legislative committees, the groups argue, and the fact that it happens behind closed doors violated a broad state law requiring that meetings of governing bodies be open to the public. The lawmakers’ move to dismiss the lawsuit was rejected by the appeals court this week, and the case was sent back to a state trial court, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Natally Cruz, interim Director of Puente Human Rights Movement, another plaintiff in the case, said the ruling “marks the turning of the tide.”
“For decades, ALEC and the captured lawmakers it associates with have corrupted the lawmaking process to advance a capitalist white supremacist agenda that has attacked Latinx, Black, Brown, Queer, and many other communities all across the U.S. without facing any form of accountability,” Cruz said in a statement.
The lawsuit also requests the court to make all documents and notes from the 2019 summit available publicly and to ban lawmakers from attending ALEC meetings behind closed-doors in the future. Jacinta Gonzalez, senior organizer at Mijente, a Latinx rights organization that is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the ruling confirms what communities have been saying for years: Corporate lawmakers must follow the law and let people enter the rooms where decisions are made “about the future of our lives.”
“ALEC is really the place where the far-right and corporations can come together to create policy that is against human rights on multiple levels,” Gonzalez said in an interview.
Since 2009, Arizona activists and others have clashed in Arizona with ALEC. with ties to white supremacists introduced model legislation at ALEC that would later become SB 1070, Arizona’s infamous “show me your papers” law. Protests erupted after the model bill became state legislation. Legal challenges largely dismantled provisions that permitted police to racially profile Latinx immigrants as undocumented immigrant. However, Gonzalez said, “copycat” legislation popped up across the country and passed in several other states, bringing activists into the street and civil rights attorneys into the courtroom.
ALEC has resisted efforts to strengthen labor unionsProtections for workers and fought environmental climate regulations,Together with state legislators, we worked to punish Palestinian rights activistswho support divestment and boycotts of Israel. ALEC members of affiliated Christian groups have launched legal attacks on abortion rights, despite the fact that the group is more focused than the culture wars on economic issues. transgender kids in schoolsAccording to the Center for Media and Democracy, it is a total of.
Recent investigations by journalists have linked ALEC members and right-wing activities to more recent times. underminePublic confidence in elections mail-in votingSupport former President Trump’s conspiracy theoriesand an attempt to overthrow 2020’s election. pass voting restrictionsRed states all across the country. Civil rights groups say restrictions on voting pushed by Republicans — most famously the voter ID laws ALEC promoted in the past — disproportionately disenfranchiseStudents, low-income students, and people with disabilities are all eligible.
Watchdogs say ALEC distanced itself from voter ID laws and disbanded its Public Safety and Elections Task Force after losing corporate members to controversy over voter ID and “stand your ground” laws that became infamous after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012.After 300 progressive groupsALEC was criticized by corporations for encouraging a wave in GOP voter suppression bills. ALEC leadership has said the group “doesn’t work on voting issues.”
However, there are critics of the left say this is a lie, and ALEC worked with right-wing operatives partner organizationsTo promote partisan gerrymanderingand voter suppression. In fact secretive ALEC working groupCleta Mitchell, a controversial attorney who served as a legal advisor to Trump, was reportedly leading the group. The meeting took place at least one year prior to the 2020 elections. Cleta Mitchell, a controversial lawyer who was Trump’s legal advisor, led the group. She pushed officials to reverse election results in Georgia and spread misinformation about the 2020 election. accordingTo the League of Women Voters
ALEC didn’t respond to a request to comment at the time this article was published.
Gonzales said the chance to fight ALEC’s secretive process for crafting model policies in court is a victory for all the communities targeted by right-wing legislation.
“It’s a fight that is connecting a lot of movements in different places and pushing back on far-right extremists and corporations that are trying to push a policy agenda,” Gonzalez said.
