Stink Tanks: Historical Records Reveal State Policy Network Was Created by ALEC

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A 1991 report tracked down byย DeSmogBlogย from the University of California-San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents reveals that theย State Policy Network (SPN) was created by theย American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), raising additional questions over both organizations’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) non-profit taxย status.ย 

Titled โ€œSpecial Report: Burgeoning Conservative Think Tanksโ€ and published by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the report states that State Policy Network’s precursor โ€” the Madison Groupย โ€” was โ€œlaunched by the American Legislative Exchange Council and housed in the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.โ€

Further, Constance โ€œConnieโ€ Campanella โ€”ย former ALEC executive director and the first president of the Madison Groupย โ€” left ALEC in 1988 to create a lobbying firm called Stateside Associates. Stateside uses ALEC meetings (and the meetings of other groups) as lobbying opportunities for its corporate clients.ย 

โ€œStateside Associates is the largest state and local government affairs firm,โ€ according to its website. โ€œSince 1988, the Stateside team has worked across the 50 states and in many local governments on behalf of dozens of companies, trade associations and government and non-profitย clients.โ€

Constance Campanella; Photo Source: Twitter

Named Constance Heckman while heading ALEC, Campenellaย also formerly served on the Board of Directors of Washington Area State Relations Group, a state-level lobbyist networkingย group.ย 

โ€œThe Washington Area State Relations Group (WASRG) is one of the nationโ€™s largest organizations dedicated exclusively to serving state government relations professionals,โ€ explains its website. โ€œSince the mid-1970s, WASRG has been providing its corporate, trade association and public sector members with a unique and valuable opportunity to interact with their peers, key state officials and public policyย experts.โ€

Shadow Lobbying Allย Along

ALEC is currently under fire for potentially abusing its 501(c)(3) non-profit IRS charity tax status, acting as a shadow lobbying apparatus and โ€œcorporate bill millโ€ throughout its 40 years ofย existence.

In response to criticism, internal documents recently revealed by The Guardianย show that ALEC created a 501(c)(4) group called the Jeffersonian Project, a move activists said was a tacit admission ALEC has illegally served as a lobbying apparatus from theย beginning.

What Campanella understood and cashed in on by creating Stateside Associates was how the โ€œshadow lobbyingโ€ process works. Her career move from serving as ALEC‘s executive director to setting up Stateside is another indicator ALEC and related groups facilitateย lobbying.ย 

โ€œStink Tanksโ€ Ideasย Factory

While ALEC facilitates passage of โ€œmodel billsโ€ โ€” what the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has coined a โ€œcorporate bill millโ€ โ€”ย State Policy Network proliferates the ideas legitimizing the myriad models that become legislation in statehousesย nationwide.ย 

These ideas come in the form of what CMD and Progress Now call โ€œStink Tanks,โ€ modeled to be โ€œmini-Heritage Foundationsโ€ by one of its original funders, Thomas Roe. State Policy Network has 64 state affiliates.

Roe, who passed away in 2000, served as vice chairman and finance chairman of the Republican Party in South Carolina and as a member of the Republican National Finance Committee. Theย Heritage Foundation,ย where Roe served on the Board of Trustees,ย now houses theย Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Thomas Roe; Photo Credit: SourceWatch

Though current State Policy Network president Tracie Sharp claimed SPN member groups don’t coordinate with one another in a November Politicoย article, Roe explicitly funded the organization to do justย that.

โ€œStarting in 1987, these organizations began meeting regularly as the Madison Groupโ€ฆto trade information and discuss strategies,โ€ a history of SPN published in 2007 explains. โ€œRoe believed that these get-togethers were so helpful that they should be formalized through a professional association that would host annual conferences, provide services, and improve communications among itsย members.โ€

To this day, State Policy Network hands out an annual Roe Award.

โ€œThe annual Roe Award pays tribute to those in the state public policy movement whose achievements have greatly advanced the free market philosophy. It recognizes leadership, innovation and accomplishment in public policy,โ€ explains the SPN website. โ€œThe award is an eagle, a symbol of liberty and the courage and conviction necessary for itsย preservation.โ€ย 

โ€œWinning is the Operativeย Wordโ€

In introducing the โ€œBurgeoning Conservative Think Tanksโ€ report in a July 1991 letter to Kurt Malmgren โ€”ย then the Senior Vice President of State Activities for the Tobacco Instituteย โ€” former ALEC Executive Director Sam Brunelli wrote โ€œwinning is what ALEC is all about.โ€

โ€œWinning is the operative word. It is an experience you can appreciate because winning the public policy debate will continue to have a tremendous positive effect on the ‘bottom line’ of your company,โ€ Brunelli wrote.

โ€œAt ALEC, we bring together, in an intellectually and challenging environment, state legislators and corporate and business executives, wherein we provide the mixture of determination, dedication, preparation, and teamwork โ€” those elements so necessary toย winning!โ€

Yet, it’s fair to say after a week of hard-hitting investigative journalism by The Guardianย and many other outlets, both ALEC and the State Policy Network have doubled downย on defense and are not โ€œwinningโ€ for now.ย ย 

Photo Credit:ย Wikimediaย Commons

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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