ALEC Legislators Plagiarizing Legislation

Making the rounds this morning is a great article on CommonDreams by Jim Hightower.

I recommend reading the whole thing – I just wanted to pull out his wisdom in the article about ALEC.

'Factory Farms' Aren't Farms: They Are Concentration Camps for Animals

Gagging on 'Ag-gag' laws

Oddly, each of these state proposals is practically identical, even including much of the same wording. That's because, unbeknownst to the public and other legislators, the bills don't originate from the state lawmakers who introduce them. Instead, they come from a Washington-based corporate front group named ALEC —  ...  .

This infamous "bill mill" periodically convenes its corporate funders to write model bills that serve their special interests. Then ALEC farms out bills to its trusted cadre of state lawmakers across the country, who introduce them as their own, not mentioning the corporate powers behind them.

The secretive ALEC network produced the model ag-gag bill in 2002 and began shipping it from state to state under the ominous tile, "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act."

pla·gia·rism 

/ˈplājəˌrizəm/

Noun

The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

Across the US, ALEC legislators plagiarizing legislation from the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council.

It's time we gave ALEC legislators an "F" for cheating.