Craddick Named Officer Of “Corrosive, Secretive And Highly Influential” Right-Wing Group

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) has been named secretary to the board of directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-wing organization of state lawmakers considered one of the most “corrosive, secretive and highly influential” groups in America.

ALEC receives its funding from groups “like Enron, Amoco, Chevron, Shell, Texaco, Coors Brewing, Koch Industries, Nationwide Insurance, Pfizer, National Energy Group, Philip Morris, and R. J. Reynolds,” according to SourceWatch.

Given this little tidbit, it will be interesting to watch Craddick’s Texas Ethics Commission disclosures over the next few filing period:

Yet other lawmakers accept “scholarships” from ALEC to help pay for their trips, and, in some cases, the costs of taking along spouses and other family members to ALEC’s annual meetings and other events. The money for the “scholarships” comes, of course, from ALEC’s corporate sponsors. Here’s how ALEC explains the program in the Unified Registration Statement (URS) for Charitable Organizations that it files in many states: Scholarship funds are solicited to support the ALEC program in each state. They are given to individuals to help them pay for travel and lodging for ALEC meetings, conventions, and/or task forces. They may also be used for registration fees for ALEC meetings or conventions.

ALEC’s state chairs routinely solicit corporate lobbyists and corporate representatives for the “scholarships.” In 1995 and 1996, for example, twelve state legislators from Colorado used “scholarships” of about $1,000 each to defray their expenses in attending ALEC meetings. State Representative Dave Owen, the ALEC state chair in Colorado and longtime vice-chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, raised the funds for the ?scholarships? from corporate lobbyists with business before the legislature.

This could be very interesting indeed.

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