ALEC is holding its annual conference in Chicago, where corporate lobbyists and Conservative lawmakers will get together - have a few drinks - and create more corporate-friendly, middle-class-destroying legislation. At annual ALEC meetings, corporate lobbyists sit down with Conservative lawmakers to craft bills - and then those lawmakers go back to their home states to get those bills passed and signed into law. According to Bloomberg, ALEC gets nearly 200 bills passed every year in state legislatures around the country.

ALEC was founded by men like Paul Weyrich, who infamously once said that he didn't want everyone to be able to vote. True to form, ALEC's recent voter suppression ID laws are spreading from state to state like a bad cold. While ALEC is primarily known for voter suppression ID and Stand Your Ground Shoot-First laws, it's reach goes much farther. The Conservative organization is well known for promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits. ALEC also uses its "model legislation" to push laws that to limit union rights and organized labor - primarily through so-called "right to work" laws.

ALEC also spends a lot of time and money on repealing minimum wage laws nationwide and fighting increases in the minimum wage. And as of late , ALEC has taken to defending the bottom-lines of Big Oil by creating "model legislation" that keeps us addicted to fossil fuels. According to the "ALEC Exposed" website, at least 77 bills have been introduced in 34 states so far this year that oppose renewable energy standards. promote fracking operations and support the Keystone XL pipeline. And ALEC is working right this minute to create more environment-destroying "model legislation" that will keep the oil industry and the Koch brothers rich.

-Thom