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I apologize to those of you who are not familiar with the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC. I'm afraid this is not a very good introduction to them. (Here's a better link for those of you who need to read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138537515/how-alec-shapes-state-politics-behind-the-scenes)

Now for the rest of you, quoting from this link http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/12/06/383108/alec-deems-kids-eating-rat-poison-an-acceptable-risk/:

GOP legislators in many states have given ALEC free reign to write anti-health care reform and anti-environment legislation. Now, ALEC is fighting to kill Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting the sale of rat poisons that pose a serious health threat to children and the ecosystem.

A top representative for the ultra-conservative group said kids eating rat poison is an “acceptable risk” that does not justify government intervention....

For years, ALEC has successfully killed these kind of regulations on environmental toxins and pollutants on behalf of corporations. At their annual conference in New Orleans this year, ALEC distributed a pamphlet titled “The Many Benefits Of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment,” complete with pictures depicting happy wildlife and a healthy environment. Companies like Koch Industries, BP, WalMart, and others join forces to fund this little-known organization that works behind the scenes to fight the dirty battles that no corporation would want to be publicly associated with.

OK, it's gone too far now, don't you think? I mean, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, what are we ordinary middle-class folks supposed to do about lawmakers (not just chemical companies) who think our children don't matter, and who will conspire to put laws on the books without seeking their constituents' input? This isn't government - it's something else, and I don't like it. What do you think? Don't forget to take the poll.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Assured, you seem to rely a lot on the liberal media, but I must confess I have a fundamental distrust of the group and tend to be skeptical of anything they say that hasn't been independently verified. They have, in my view, shown themselves all to willing to misrepresent the truth in order to serve their own agenda. Can you cite a conservative source for the information in question?

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LOL! OK fellas, you have a valid point.

I'll see what I can dig up.

LOL!!!!

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

OK Gideon and Paco - here's something from a Texas newspaper, which ought to make it at least neutral terrritory:

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/03/3568769/some-say-the-american-legislative.html

The rat poison story is limited to the liberal blogosphere. Paco, if you are in Texas, you should ask your local elected representative about the rat poison thing, because ALEC (as you will read in the Star Telegram) is lawmakers and chemical companies drafting legislation together. I don't see how the constituents figure into it, IOW. I am not trying to make ALEC wrong just because they are conservative, because I would have a problem with ALEC even if they were liberal, because they leave lawmakers' constituents out of the loop.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Thanks for accommodating me, Assured.

NPR asks, "Who's really writing states' legislation?" The implication is that legislators aren't the ones doing it, but legislators are always involved in the model bills recommended by ALEC. That's certainly more than can be said for Obamacare, which legislators had to pass before they could find out what was in the bill! Once a model bill is recommended by ALEC, what will become of it is up to the various legislatures. A legislature might adopt a model bill as presented, they might amend it, they might adopt certain provisions in the drafts of other bills, or they might reject them entirely. And, of course, if legislatures approve model bills or variations of them, then their respective states' executives must either approve or veto the legislations on their merits.

John Nichols, a political reporter for The Nation, says ALEC's agenda is "to clear the way for lower taxes, less regulation, a lot of protection against lawsuits, [and] ALEC is very, very active in [the] opening up of areas via privatization for corporations to make more money, particularly in places you might not usually expect like public education." That sounds to me like the organization is working for less government regulation and more economic freedom.

With regard to Reckitt Benckiser's confrontation with the EPA, there appear to be two issues. One is the company's social responsibility to reformulate its products in conformity with EPA guidelines. The other is the EPA's practice of cancelling pesticide registrations without initiating formal registration cancellation proceedings, which the District of Columbia U.S. District Court says exceeds the agency's authority. On the one hand, I think the company does have a social responsibility in the matter. On the other hand, I think government agencies such as the EPA should be opposed when they exceed their lawful authority.

It's not clear to me what ALEC's role is in all this. If its position has been that the EPA doesn't have the right to run over the company as it attempted to do, then I would have to agree with them. And so do the courts.

BTW, did you know that most municipalities in the United States put rat poison in their drinking water? While all of Europe and Canda has either stopped or never begun fluoridating their water supply, we still spend local tax dollars to put rat poison in our water. I wish somebody would get excited about that.

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Re fluoride:
Gideon, I did not think you would be one to take scaremongering so much to heart. To disagree on grounds of your right not to have your water tampered with is your right in the US ... no problem, but to say there is "rat poison in the water supply" is open to such misinterpretation. So many things that are good in small quantities are poisonous in big quantities, including many essential vitamins, and of course it differs across species. So, yes, fluoride in a sufficient amount used to be included as a constituent in rat poison. Fluoride is added to the water supply just about everywhere here down under, in a concentration of something like one part per million, not unlike that found in "natural" water supplies before the naturally occurring chemicals are leeched out of them in water treatment plants ... and it worries me not at all, especially as dentists assure us that it keeps our teeth happy.

I also regularly eat dog poison. A small amount of chocolate can be fatal to a dog .... but it will not poison me, even in quite large quantities - contribution to obesity notwithstanding.

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Actually, the results of studies done on water fluoridation are mixed. In March 2006 the Washington, D.C.-based National Academy of Sciences released a report finding that fluoride is less safe than previously thought, and that the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit on fluoride in water should be lowered. Specifically, it said that fluoride levels allowed under federal water-safety rules cause a harmful variety of dental fluorosis and it found persuasive evidence that fluoride in water increases bone fractures as well as stiffness in the joints of the elderly, and that it also may be related to Alzheimer’s disease, marginally reduce IQ in children and alter the endocrine and hormonal levels that control most of the functions of the human body with unknown effects. The NAS said the chemical may even cause bone cancer, although the evidence is “tentative and mixed.” And in August 2009 the United States Centers for Disease Control called for further studies to explore the association between fluoride exposure in drinking water during childhood and the incidence of osteosarcoma among males. Since the safety of water fluoridation remains open to question, I think the prudent course would be to err on the side of caution. (I feel the same way about genetically modified foods.)

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exactly! -- pesticides, GMO, all of it is suspect

the food idustry, healtcare, lawyers, insurance companies, gov't -- i would not be surprised if there was a conspiracy to keep us sick, stupid, dependent, & so under control

go organic -- read the labels -- educate yourselves -- exercise

The whole point is that we VOTERS need to be given an opportunity to weigh in, and I am worried about a mentality that says, "Make your big-dollar donors happy, and ignore the electorate." ALEC is starting to get that way.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

What do you propose that we do?

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Read up on what ALEC is up to in your area, and then meet with your elected representatives and ask them their positions on these issues. Let them know that you will be watching how they vote on these things and that you expect them to represent YOU and not these companies.

I think the problem is that sometimes they think no one is paying attention, and there are a lot more of us voters than there are owners of companies. These lawmakers depend on the popular vote to keep their seats, and they know it. They just think we're not paying attention. Unfortunately, we haven't been, which is why this is starting to happen.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

It would be better for us to not put our trust in man, but in God. Your article is purely secular, with no dependence on God. Is it not plain that rat poison ought to be put securely out of reach of children by the parents. Why at all would you suppose that other´s outside of your house should be responsible for what is your responsibility inside your house?

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Well, it is possible that children might encounter rat poison in places other than their homes -- outside of apartment buildings, in parks, etc. IMO children so young that they would eat rat poison should not be unsupervised outside of their homes, so I see that issue as primarily one of parental responsibility. On the other hand, I recognize the reality that children in low-income, single-parent households may not get the best supervision. In a situation like this, I think a reasonable course of action would be to communicate directly with the company that makes the poison and ask them to be socially responsible. In this case, that's Reckitt Benckiser. If the company is unresponsive, one might organize a boycott of all the company's products. Companies that are otherwise unresponsive to public concerns will often change their policies and practices when faced with a boycott.

Personally, I'm not convinced that ALEC is a problem. I think legislators should listen to businesses and be sensitive to how their actions will impact them. So much legislation in the country is unfriendly to business and enacted without due consideration for unintended consequences, and such legislation is generally harmful to our economy and our liberty. As I noted before, it's not clear to me what ALEC's role has been in the matter of Reckitt Benckiser. I think it's possible that all they've done is defend the company's position vis-à-vis the EPA's regulatory overreach and that liberals have used it as an opportunity to attack ALEC because the organization has been working contrary to their own political agenda.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to be aware of what ALEC is doing, but I'm far more concerned with what the liberal organizations and legislators are doing and I'm not inclined to divert my attention from them to focus on what appears to be an essentially conservative group.

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Fair enough, Gideon. If I've convinced you to take a closer look at what your elected representatives are doing, I would be very happy. The whole point of this thread is that if we aren't careful, lobbyists and big-dollar contributions will take over, and we will never know it. ALEC is too cosy for me, but that is because I have looked into what they are doing, and I hate ALL of it. We each have to decide for ourselves, though.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!