Legislators' vacation in the sun receives no traction from Missouri media

I can't say I was surprised when my posts about Missouri Republican legislators vacationing in sunny San Diego at the taxpayers' expense picked up no traction from the traditional media (or the blogosphere either, for that matter).

At a time when Missourians were losing jobs right and left, about a dozen GOP legislators were attending the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meeting in San Diego. While lobbyists paid for Speaker of the House Ron Richard, his wife Patty, and other legislators and their spouses to participate in wine tasting and covered the costs of their meals, you and I took care of their lodging and travel costs, all at a time when millions have been cut from our state budget.

ALEC, as I noted in the earlier posts, is a right-wing organization that has pushed, and in most cases written, the bills that come before state lawmakers, including the so-called Health Care Freedom Act, pushed one of ALEC's disciples, Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield.

ALEC's role is spelled out in an article published this week in the Washington Examiner:

But was Proposition C a spontaneous show of grassroots discontent or a carefully orchestrated political ploy? Clouding the picture is the close involvement of a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative 501(c)(3) nonprofit that brings together state legislators and representatives of major industries to craft “model legislation,” including an item called the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, upon which Proposition C was based. Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham, who sponsored the legislation to refer Proposition C to the ballot, serves as an ALEC board member, and state legislatures in Arizona and Oklahoma, which have referred similar bills to the ballot for November, also enjoyed the support of ALEC-affiliated state representatives.


“What ALEC does is they’ll get members to simply announce they’ll introduce the legislation and then claim they have a national grassroots movement of 40 states opposing health care reform,” said Charles Monaco of the Progressive States Network, which works on progressive legislation at the state level. “Industry groups saw early on that the mandate would be the place to hit comprehensive reform because it was one of the least popular aspects of the law to voters, even though it’s one of the provisions that will benefit [industry] the most.”