The Secrecy That Accompanies the Lack of Lobbying Disclosure
ALEC has gone local. No, not Alec Baldwin. ALEC is the <a href="http://www.alec.org/" target="”_blank”">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>,
an organization that for the last few years has been drafting
conservative legislation for state legislatures. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/foes-of-unions-try-their-…; target="”_blank”">an
article in today's New York <i>Times</i></a>, this year ALEC
started a new program called the <a href="http://www.alec.org/acce/" target="”_blank”">American City County Exchange</a>,
which will draft conservative legislation for local legislatures.<br>
<br>
Its first area of focus is right-to-work laws, the term for laws
that prohibit labor unions from requiring their members to pay fees.
The members still get the value of the union's work, but don't have
to pay for it. This leaves the union with less resources to get
politically involved. The goal of these laws is changing the balance
of political competition.<br>
<br>
The issue I want to raise involves local lobbying. When
organizations such as ALEC try to get county officials to pass their
laws, they do not have to disclose their lobbying, because very few
counties have lobbying oversight programs. Thus, according to the
article, when an ALEC ordinance came before the Warren County,
Kentucky Fiscal Court (effectively, the county commission) last
week, it came completely out of the blue, with no disclosure of
lobbying or even of the topic of the ordinance.<br>
<br>
"It was advertised in advance as 'an ordinance relating to the
promotion of economic development and commerce,' and there was
little public comment, though there were presentations by the
Chamber of Commerce and the Bluegrass Institute, a policy group with
close ties to ALEC. 'It was sprung on everybody,' said Connie
Warren, the financial secretary of the United Automobile Workers
Local 2164. 'The other side had all their ducks in a row; we didn’t
have even the opportunity to say how we felt about it.'"<br>
<br>
At the state level, at least, there are lobbying disclosure
requirements and committees through which an ordinance has to pass.
There are also professional lobbyists both for business interests
and for labor interests, so that there can be no surprises. At the
county and city levels, there rarely are disclosure requirements and
often no committee process.<br>
<br>
What makes this secret process even worse is the involvement of an
organization called Protect My Check. According to the article,
Protect My Check has promised to cover any legal expenses that come
from passing a right-to-work ordinance, which many people believe
contravenes federal law. According to my research online, Protect My
Check was only established this September and has no online
presence. But <a href="http://www.mycheckmychoice.org/" target="”_blank”">the My Check My Choice
website</a> says that it was "started by Protect My Check,
Inc.," even though the records show they were established on the
same day and have offices in the same building in Tampa.<br>
<br>
The spokesperson for Protect My Check told the <i>Times</i> that "his
group’s donors were not public but, other than his own contribution,
all of the money raised so far had been from local businesses and
employers in the targeted counties." But how is anyone to know?<br>
<br>
This is far too much secrecy for my taste. Ordinances should not be
passed without any information about who has drafted them, who has
lobbied for them, or who the lobbyists' clients or funders are. And
ordinances should not be passed without listening to other voices or
allowing them even to speak at a public meeting.<br>
<br>
Lobbying disclosure programs make this kind of secrecy more
difficult to accomplish, especially if local officials are
themselves required to keep public logs of their meetings and
communications with lobbyists. This is why my chapter on local
lobbying, which will be available next month, calls for lobbying
disclosure programs for all local governments, where there are now
very few of them. We cannot tolerate secrecy in local government.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
---