So ALEC is still very much what ALEC has been for decades: a key player, perhaps the key player, in advancing the corporate agenda on a host of issues in statehouses across the country.
What has changed for ALEC is that a lot more Americans are now paying attention to its advocacy.
New national campaigns to get corporations and foundations to quit ALEC are ramping up.
So, too, are efforts to ask whether ALEC, which says it is not a lobbying group, should have to follow federal and state rules that are supposed to regulate groups that seek to influence the legislative process.
Legislators in a number of states have proposed that ALEC be required to follow existing lobbying laws when, as Center for Media and Democracy executive director Lisa Graves says, they are "[advancing] the lobbying agenda of special interests to the detriment of ordinary Americans."
On Monday, Common Cause and CMD submitted a joint letter to the IRS requesting "an immediate investigation into the American Legislative Exchange Council's massive underreporting of payment for state lawmakers' travel on its Form 990s, filed with the Internal Revenue Service."
The letter charges that ALEC "engaged in an impermissible amount of lobbying and served private rather than public interests."
In addition to asking for the federal examining of whether ALEC's approach is appropriate in light of its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, the groups are also asking state ethics officials to determine if ALEC's "scholarship" programs complies with state gift and disclosure laws.
Common Cause and CMD argue that the conflict is clear.
"Ultimately," the groups argue in their letter to the IRS, "ALEC's scholarship fund activity provides private benefits to two core constituents: (1) state legislators, who receive all-expense-paid vacations, and (2) corporate donors, who are able to obtain "business-friendly" legislation through this influence peddling."
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