Wyo Liberty Group is Neither

For a state whose voters don’t like outsiders telling them what to do, Wyoming has given dangerously little attention to a Texan with deep pockets who wants to alter the social and political landscape.

Perhaps that’s because of the misleading name she gave her organization.  Who is the Wyoming Liberty Group (WLG). Why has it targeted public employee retirement benefits?

WLG is a front-organization for the Koch brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and others determined to lower their personal taxes even if senior citizens lose.

ALEC is a collection of large corporations that establishes ties with legislators by funding their trips to exotic resorts, paying for their meals, booze, and entertainment. Between the merrymaking, corporate lobbyists fill legislators full of their version of the “facts.” When the party’s over, legislators return packing so-called “Model Legislation” to introduce in the Wyoming legislature.

One of those “model” bills is called “pension reform.” It’s a pension disaster for public employees. It begins, “The Legislature finds that the defined-benefit model of retirement benefits for state and municipal employees is not fiscally sustainable. It is the intent of the Legislature, therefore, to direct the [state retirement board] to create and maintain a defined-contribution program in which all state and municipal employees hired on or after [date], 2011 will automatically enroll after [X] months of employment to become eligible to accrue retirement benefits.”

ALEC wrote the bill, legislators fill in the blanks and toss the bill into the hopper, and WLG does the lobbying.

WLG cares little about Wyoming. Texan Susan Gore, heiress of the Gore-Tex fortune, created the organization. Her interest in our state is using it as a laboratory to prove that millions of out-of-state dollars can buy public policy victories supported by her rightwing friends.

Who are those “friends”? Sourcewatch.org reports WLG is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). The Center for Media and Democracy conducted an in-depth investigation. "EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government," reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders.”

SPN and ALEC direct members like WLG to conduct assaults on public pension plans. Enter the “Reason Foundation.” They’re funded by Koch Family Foundations. David Koch is one of their trustees. Reason Foundation has ties to ALEC.

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reason_Foundation.

Reason Foundation published a guidebook for WLG’s use in attacking state pension funds. The “Pension Reform Handbook” tells local hayseeds how to identify key leaders, framing the issue so that even some state employees might find “pension reform” attractive. They warn supporters to be prepared for “all kinds of union chicanery and intimidation tactics.”

WLG uses “Wyoming” in its name. That’s where their understanding of Wyoming ends. In addition to the Texan who funds them, their spokespersons attacking Wyoming’s pension program are Canadian Maureen Bader and Texan Jason Gay. He’s written an article entitled, “State Pensions: Will Wyoming Wait Until It’s Too Late.”

The basis of the “Model” bill is a so-called “finding” that “the defined-benefit model of retirement benefits for state and municipal employees is not fiscally sustainable.” That “finding” may have a factual basis somewhere but it doesn’t in Wyoming. Gay and Bader use horror stories that have no application to Wyoming.

WLG has marching orders from national partners but no facts justifying use of the ALEC-SPN-WLG cookie cutter approach in Wyoming. Wyoming’s retirement system is actuarially targeted to be funded at a rate above 114% of the benefits obligations in the near future.

Additionally, benefits earned by retirees over their careers are a significant part of the Wyoming economy. The National Institute on Retirement Security, documents that 28,500 Wyoming pensioners received 510 million benefit dollars in 2012. Retiree spending supports 4300 Wyoming jobs.

Legislators need to think about who elected them. It wasn’t a group of wealthy, selfish outsiders.

The ALEC Ponzi Scheme

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a monument to political cynicism, a lobbying “Ponzi” scheme allowing corporations contributing tax-free dollars to slush funds to ferry legislators to posh resorts, wining and dining them while, as alecexposed.org put it, indoctrinating “legislators with skewed statistics and distorted analysis in support of the agenda of these special interests.”

ALEC encourages lawmakers to bring the whole family on ALEC’s tab. Childcare is even provided, what ALEC calls “Kids Congress.” The goal of corporate sponsors isn’t social engagement. A Wisconsin legislator said ALEC “operates like a dating service between legislators and special interests.” 

If you don’t know about ALEC, you must. A long list of Wyoming legislators, all Republicans, belongs. Sourcewatch.org identifies the following Wyoming members: Laramie County House members John Eklund and Dan Zwonitzer as well as Representatives Rosie Berger (R-51), Richard Cannady (R-06), Kathy Davison (R-20), Allen Jaggi (R-18), Thomas Lockhart (R-57), Carl Loucks (R-59), Speaker of the House Tom Lubnau, II (R-31), David Miller, Tim Stubson (R-56), and Matt Teeters (R-05). Rep. Norine Kaspwerik identified herself as a member in a letter-to-the-editor defending her ALEC participation.

Wyoming senate members were identified as Laramie County senator Leslie Nutting, as well as Senators James Anderson (R-02), Eli Bebout (R-26), Bruce Burns (R-21), Cale Case (R-25), Henry Coe (R-18), Stan Cooper (R-14), and Dan Dockstader (R-16).

ALEC is the creature of Paul Weyrich, the Karl Rove of his times. Weyrich co-founded conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Free Congress Foundation, and ALEC. Weyrich coined the term "moral majority,” the political action group he co-founded in 1979 with Jerry Falwell.

The Center for Media and Democracy recently issued a report on ALEC entitled “Buying Influence,” providing details of a strategy ALEC has successfully and relentlessly kept from the public eye. Wyoming legislators are featured prominently in the expose. The report “analyzes new information about how some of the biggest corporations in the world fund trips for state lawmakers to meet with their lobbyists at resorts across the country.”

These expensive events are key to ALEC’s success. “Buying Influence” names Wyoming legislators as  “frequent flyers.” ALEC is not forthcoming with answers, as you might imagine so the 2013 report was forced to rely on data from 2006-2008 and 2010. During that time Wyoming ALECs were reportedly the sixth highest recipients of ALEC’s largesse, cashing “scholarship” checks for $111,750.

The ethics law Wyoming’s legislature passed to prevent questionable conduct conveniently exempts reimbursement for this sort of travel.

What does ALEC get for its trouble? These “meetings” give corporate lobbyists exceptionally close access to key lawmakers. The lobbyists and the legislators break bread while agreeing on “model” legislation that lawmakers take home and introduce. At alec.org you’ll find a long list of legislation they support.

They encourage legislators to reject Medicaid expansion, “downsize” government, privatize education, fund for-profit prisons, deny climate change, outsource jobs, break unions, reduce workplace safety, and pass voter ID laws. Before ALEC’s “stand-your- ground” proposal, common law “self-defense” doctrines prevented “gun-toters” from killing teenagers for simply playing loud music or wearing hoodies.

ALEC opposes any “tax increase in this time of historic budget gaps before addressing the excessive amount of pay government workers receive in comparison to workers in the private sector” and demanding “accrued retirement benefit obligations to all (public employees) be immediately adjusted to a level comparable to that of private sector workers.”

ALEC opposes minimum wages increases and seeks to have government regulations replaced with “market disciplines.”

If any of that sounds familiar as the current legislative session unfolds, it’s no coincidence. An ALEC executive boasted, “With our success rate at more than 20%, I would say ALEC is a good investment. Nowhere else can you get a return that high.”

ALEC and too many Wyoming legislators quietly make the world a safer place for big Pharma, the Koch Brothers, insurance and chemical companies, big tobacco, and other corporate interests.

And Wyoming voters thought their representatives were dreaming up these crazy bills on their own!

Is your legislator a "Smart-ALEC" ?

I was a Wyoming state legislator for 10 years and a professional lobbyist for twice that long. In one capacity or another including serving a few times as the chaplain, I was involved in every session of the state legislature from 1967 until 2011. Some may question how much I learned in those 44 years but I will tell you this. I know lobbying when I see it.

Those who appear not to be lobbying do the most effective lobbying. Lobbyists are about as popular with the public as are politicians. We used to joke among ourselves, “Please don’t tell my mother I’m a lobbyists. She thinks I play piano in a cat-house.”

The game is that lobbyists pretend not to be peddling influence and legislators pretend not to be swayed by those who peddle influence. When damage is done to the public interest, they each stand there like Pontius Pilate, washing their hands.

The best lobbyists are amateurs compared to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Legislators, who’ve been wined and dined by ALEC, if honest, would be as stunned as I to read this disingenuous disclaimer on ALEC’s webpage. “ALEC does not lobby in any state.” Even more stunning is to learn they are a 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation.

Their board of directors is not exactly a list of the American Public Interest Hall of Fame. It includes executives from Wal-Mart, AT&T, Exxon-Mobile, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Koch Brothers Companies and, interestingly, the American Bail Association.  If that sounds like a group of folks out to protect your family, you need a refresher course on political science. Which of these organizations has a reputation for simply seeking good government in spite of their own special interests?

In a highly technical sense, ALEC doesn’t lobby “in any state” as it claims. They leave that to legislators who fall under their spell. They host legislators at expensive resorts. Their May meeting is in Charlotte. During these conferences corporate folks spend quality time with your legislators, time you would never be afforded, costing what you could never afford. When they aren’t attending receptions or playing golf together, they participate in drafting “model legislation” for their legislative minions to carry home.

By the time the meeting ends, your legislator is fully equipped, returning home with a draft bill and all the talking points. It doesn’t take a political scientist to see what’s going on here. ALEC uses tax-deductible corporate donations to entertain state legislators who then carry home the bills these corporations want enacted. ALEC doesn’t need to lobby because its members have legislators doing not only the legislating but the lobbying as well. It’s genius! It also seriously undermines the independence of those we elect.

More than a third of Wyoming legislators belong to ALEC. They downplay the ALEC’s influence.  ALEC downplays its influence. It doesn’t serve either to acknowledge ALEC’s clout. But you can see it in the bills introduced and enacted. Wyoming legislators have returned from ALEC meetings to introduce bills supporting the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowing corporate funding of election campaigns, directing the attorney general to join lawsuits against federal Obamacare, regulating immigration, denying citizens access to courts when injured through corporate negligence, and preventing the state from regulating greenhouse gases.

Last weekend a guest editorial about why Wyoming should not implement a health insurance exchange appeared. It supported Wyoming legislators who have decided not to move ahead with an initiative to help uninsured Wyoming people find health coverage. An ALEC staff person wrote the editorial.

Perhaps the definition of lobbying has changed since I lobbied and was lobbied but I think I know it when I see it. ALEC member-legislators are not citizen-legislators as they claim. They are lobbyist-legislators, serving national corporate interests rather than the public interest.

Before you vote this November, remember the sum total of the special interest protected by ALEC and their members-legislators does not equal the public interest.