This Model Bill was adopted by the City of Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2015, and since then is now pending in three cities - New Orleans, Louisiana; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Albany, New York. So, the ordinance started spreading really quickly.
One thing that Atlanta Progressive News had covered, and that OpEdNews has also covered, is something called ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council. And, as many of your readers know, ALEC is a Koch Brothers funded, corporate-funded right-wing group that writes Model Bills for State Legislatures. Things like Voter ID, private prisons, privatization of education, drug testing for food stamp recipients, and the like - all come from ALEC. ALEC writes the bills and then the Republicans introduce them in several states at at time.
So, it occurred to me that with Affordable Housing Impact Statements, I was kind of doing the work of a progressive ALEC - and, in part, because it amuses me so much, I decided to call it SMART ALEC!
So, I and three others have co-founded SMART ALEC as a new nonprofit lobbying organization to focus on affordable housing and the environment.
SMART ALEC stands for State and Municipal Action for Results Today / Agenda for Legislative Empowerment and Collaboration. Our website is www.smartalec.org
We want to create a new type of progressive policymaking, that is transparent and open and also that involves average citizens in the process of coming up with the very ideas that we promote.
JB: First of all, I applaud any alternative to how ALEC secretly fuels the legislation that ends up wreaking havoc and ruining communities across the country. And I'm encouraged that your initiative for affordable housing is starting to catch on. But you, or actually we, are up against a well-funded campaign, spearheaded by the billionaire Koch Brothers. How can we make a dent in the damage they've done and continue to do? Is it not like a peashooter against a giant?
MC: It is pretty much David versus Goliath, as you noted, but we simply must respond to what they are doing.
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