The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is meeting in San Francisco from July 19th through 23rd. A Press Conference with speakers was held in protest of ALEC on Thursday, July 20th, at 2 pm at the Marriott Hotel at 55 Fourth St., in downtown SF (Powell St. BART)

ALEC is funded primarily by large corporations, industry groups, and conservative foundations. It is one of the nation’s most powerful and least known corporate lobbies. If you have worked on any issue coming under the broad rubric of the progressive agenda, be it health care, labor rights, resource exploitation, fair trade, privatization of prisons, etc., ALEC has almost certainly introduced legislation in opposition to your purposes. ALEC’s agenda promotes free trade, minimum government oversight, protection of (corporate) property and minimizing regulation of those in the extractive industry -- letting polluters slither out of responsibility for clean-up, lowering diesel emission standards and energy deregulation. ALEC “ghost writes” legislative bills that are in the corporate interest on many issues, including bills that disallow communities to pass resolutions against genetically-engineered seeds, crops or animals. A bill currently in the California state legislature, SB 1056, would do just that. Read more about ALEC

Speakers at the ALEC meeting include former Congressman Dick Armey, economist Milton Friedman, and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales was scheduled to be at a breakfast at Medjool Restaurant on Friday morning to discuss immigration and the President's call for "comprehensive" immigration reform, but this event was cancelled, citing “security reasons.” Read more about the cancellation.

ALEC website