Monday, May 14, 2012

Wisconsin Needs Some Koch Blockers

The Center for Media and Democracy has a big piece showing how ALEC had their filthy fascist fingers in the creation of Stand Your Ground laws and Castle Doctrine laws.

But there is a part of their article that really raised the hackles on the back of my neck (emphasis mine):
At that meeting in the nation’s capitol a few months earlier, Mark Braden of the law firm Baker Hostedler kicked off the task force with his presentation on redistricting, that is, how to revise electoral maps after the census, a top priority for the new ALEC majorities in several states. As the Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) PRWatch has documented, Braden—the former Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee—also advised ALEC’s Republican members in Wisconsin on remapping legislative districts in the spring of 2011.

Other ALEC business in the minutes referenced included opposition to “Pay to Play Legislation,” meaning opposing bills that would ban government contractors from donating to political campaigns. The “model” resolution opposing such a ban was spearheaded by right-winger Bradley Smith’s special interest outfit, the “Center for Competitive Politics” (CCP), through its then-president Sean Parnell (who is also an “expert” for the Heartland Institute, which been funded by Koch money). CCP does not reveal which corporations, CEOs, or family foundations fund its operations, which focus on advancing the notions that money is speech and that corporations and CEOs should be able to spend unlimited money influencing elections. CCP even opposed new disclosure rules after Citizens United in the DISCLOSE Act, just as ALEC opposed new disclosure in response to that U.S. Supreme Court decision.
We already have seen how Walker and WISGOP is in the back pockets of Big Business and would have already turned Wisconsin into a right-to-work-for-less corporate state if we had not crippled them by recalling the two Republican Senators last year.

The fact that they are still working at finalizing their plans to corrupt the state should make you afraid and a little more than pissed off. That is not what Wisconsin is about and that is not who its people are.

Kinda puts even more of a sense of urgency for the June 5th elections, doesn't it?

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