New ALEC Membership List Names More Legislators Tied to the Group

A membership list detailing the names of more than 200 members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) reveals dozens of legislators not previously associated with the group.

The list of members on the ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development (CIED) task force, was obtained by Documented through an Ohio public records request.

The CIED task force at ALEC promotes model legislation that concerns employee rights in the workplace, including opposing increases to the minimum wage, and undermining the right to organize in a union. (For more on how corporate lobbyists use ALEC to promote their agenda, see here).

ALEC does not list its members publicly. Documented previously published a registration list from a 2017 meeting, which revealed hundreds of legislative members. The new CIED roster provides an additional 173 ALEC legislators that were not disclosed in the 2017 registration list, including 49 who appear not to have previously been associated with ALEC publicly. This analysis compared the new names against previously identified ALEC members on The Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Politicians list, and Stand Up to ALEC’s database.

Noteworthy legislators included in the list:

• Former Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods was found guilty in May 2018 on 15 of 17 counts in a federal corruption trial and is currently serving time in prison.
• Former Utah Representative Jon Stanard abruptly resigned in February 2018 after allegations of meeting a prostitute for sex became public. According to news reports, taxpayer funds were used to pay for the hotel stays with the prostitute.
• Georgia State Representative Darlene Taylor received national attention following a speech she made related to an anti-abortion fetal “heartbeat” bill. "Who speaks for the baby named Fetus? Who speaks for the baby named Fetus? Well today I'm going to. To quote baby Fetus, 'I deserve to have the right, too. Some may squarm in their seats or turn their backs. But I will speak today. Baby fetus says and I quote 'I have that right. Don’t be afraid or intimidated about acknowledging me,'" said Taylor.
• Oklahoma State Representative Jeff Coody made controversial comments in March 2018, in which he said teachers' demands for pay raises amounted to extortion.
• Vermont State Representative Pattie McCoy and Maryland Delegate Johnny Mautz were outspoken opponents of bills in their state that would increase minimum wage.
• News reports in Virginia highlighted Delegate Margaret Ransone's comments in a subcommittee that heard measures to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Ransone opposed the measure and said in the committee that “I don’t need words on a piece of paper. God made us all equal and I am not going to support this ERA resolution that's before the body today."

The full roster can be found here (note that multiple legislators appear twice in the original document). Below is a searchable version of the roster compiled by Documented, without duplicate names.