All too often, an issue appears on the radar screen and everyone scratches their head wondering, “Where the heck did THAT come from?” But the truth is, the issue had been percolating for quite some time and then suddenly reached the boiling point.
Now, until my column on Friday most of you had probably never heard of ALEC…the American Legislative Exchange Council. But I’ll guarantee every conservative state legislator in the U.S. knows who ALEC is. ALEC has been around for 40 years and has been INVALUABLE in helping draft “model” legislation for conservative legislators to introduce in their home states.
And ALEC has been so successful in helping advance the limited-government, free-market cause that the Left launched a major assault against the organization last summer…first “talking” to ALEC’s corporate sponsors and asking them politely to withdraw their financial support; then “extorting” the companies by threatening boycotts and protests and all manner of unpleasant things unless they threw ALEC under the bus.
But it wasn’t until the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida and the subsequent debate over the state’s Stand Your Ground law – which inspired similar model legislation in other states; not the result of model legislation proposed by ALEC; a point the media has consistently failed to clarify (go figure) – that the extortion efforts gained any ground.
Well, now the Left smells blood. And if you don’t think this ALEC issue has become a “hill to die for” for them, you better read this blog post from one of the left’s most radical apparatchiks, The Daily Kos.
If the left is successful in neutering ALEC, the only folks left having a serious impact on the drafting of state legislation will be organized labor, the trial lawyers and environmental wackos. So the Right better wake up and smell the coffee on this one…FAST!
