USuncutMN says: Tax the corporations! Tax the rich! Stop the cuts, fight for social justice for all. Standing in solidarity with http://www.usuncut.org/ and other Uncutters worldwide. FIGHT for a Foreclosure Moratorium! Foreclosure = homelessness. Resist the American Legislative Exchange Council, Grover Norquist and Citizen's United. #Austerity for the wheeler dealers, NOT the people.



We Are The 99% event

USuncutMN supports #occupyWallStreet, #occupyDC, the XL Pipeline resistance Yes, We, the People, are going to put democracy in all its forms up front and center. Open mic, diversity, nonviolent tactics .. Social media, economic democracy, repeal Citizen's United, single-payer healthcare, State Bank, Operation Feed the Homeless, anti-racism, homophobia, sexISM, war budgetting, lack of transparency, et al. Once we identify who we are and what we've lost, We can move forward.



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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Common Cause accuses conservative American Legislative Exchange Council nonprofit of lobbying - Los Angeles Times

Common Cause accuses conservative American Legislative Exchange Council nonprofit of lobbying - Los Angeles Times

The government watchdog group Common Cause has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax status of the nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an association of conservative state legislators and private sector officials that churns out hundreds of bills and resolutions annually to pare back regulation and promote business.

Over the last few years, Washington-based ALEC has helped legislators around the country to introduce measures, often taken verbatim from the group's website, that would dismantle regional climate change initiatives, rebuke the Environmental Protection Agency, repeal health care reform and curtail labor's power, among other things.

In a letter to the IRS, Common Cause argued that a review would help determine if ALEC's tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status should be revoked due to "excess lobbying or, alternatively, because ALEC appears to operate primarily to further private business interests and not to advance a charitable purpose."

Raegan Weber, a spokeswoman for ALEC, denied that accusation. She also asserted that bringing together legislators and private-sector executives was good for democracy: "Legislators should hear from those the government intends to regulate."

On Wednesday, a Wisconsin-based liberal activist group, the Center for Media and Democracy, released thousands of pages of internal ALEC documents, including model bills, emails and details of the organization's internal procedures, which give private-sector representatives a major role in drafting proposed legislation.

Citing information in ALEC's tax returns, Common Cause said that most of the group's work is done by nine task forces made up of legislators and corporate representatives. The task forces generate model bills.

ALEC has said more than 1,000 bills are introduced annually around the country based on the group's templates. Common Cause contends that such activity violates tax code provisions that bar nonprofits from "carrying on propaganda, or other attempting, to influence legislation."


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