http://truth-out.org/news/item/15743-alec-who-alec-has-an-identity-crisis
"ALEC Who?" ALEC Has an Identity Crisis
Monday, 15 April 2013 11:17
By Nick Surgey, PRWatch | News Analysis
The American Legislative Exchange Council, which for decades has been
known by the acronym "ALEC," is asking members to stop calling it ALEC
since the name is now associated with a "distant, mysterious, Washington
alphabet organization of unknown intentions."
"You may have noticed we are limiting the use of the acronym 'ALEC,'"
wrote Bill Meierling, ALEC's recently-hired Senior Director of Public
Affairs in a March 13 email sent to ALEC members and obtained through an
open records request.
"Over the past year, the word 'ALEC' has been used to conjure up images
of a distant, mysterious, Washington alphabet organization of unknown
intentions," he continued. "The organization has refocused on the words
'Exchange' and 'Council' to emphasize our goal of a broad exchange of
ideas to make government work better and more efficiently."
From the March 13 email to ALEC members from Bill Meierling. This is
the kind of expert advice Meierling brings to the operation. Meierling
previously worked for Edelman, the world's largest PR firm, which rose
to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s doing crisis management for R. J.
Reynolds and other parts of the tobacco industry to help them "slow or
reverse the growing negative trends in public opinion regarding smoking."
ALEC has been facing its own PR crisis since the Center for Media and
Democracy launched the ALEC Exposed project in July 2011 and made
publicly available over 800 ALEC "model bills." This exposure led to
outrage over ALEC's role in promoting "Stand Your Ground" laws, voter
suppression, union-busting, and climate change denial, leading 44 major
corporations to publicly drop their ALEC membership.
The "corporate bill mill" hired Edelman and has been struggling to
repair its image in the past year. In April 2012, it dismantled the
"Public Safety and Elections Task Force" responsible for promoting gun
laws and voter suppression, and last month, posted a small selection of
its model bills online in an effort to further distance itself from its
most undesirable legislation.
The ALEC name has become increasingly discredited in many circles, not
because it is viewed as a "mysterious, Washington alphabet organization
of unknown intentions," but because of its role in facilitating
corporate influence over state lawmaking and warping the democratic
process. This is not likely to change no matter what kind of makeover
the organization gets.
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