ALEC membership has its benefits, and for 2,400 or so state legislators across the nation who belong to ALEC, chief among them each year is the opportunity to take at least one all-expenses-paid trip that looks a lot like a vacation. The allure of an attractive trip, in fact, could be enough to induce some lawmakers — perhaps even those who are not comfortable with much of the organization’s special-interest agenda — to sign on ALEC’s dotted line and become a member at the bargain rate of $25 a year.

Many state legislators are able to tap official travel accounts to pay for their trips to ALEC’s annual meetings and to other ALEC-sponsored events, thus shifting the cost of their trips—air fares, lodging, meals, and entertainment—to taxpayers. A typical example: State Senator Stephen Martin of Virginia, who serves as ALEC’s state chair, obtained a $2,580 reimbursement from the state for his trip to ALEC’s 1999 annual meeting.(17) Martin is by no means alone, of course, and over the years ever-larger numbers of state lawmakers have turned to official accounts to finance their trips to ALEC’s annual meeting and other events.

An examination of financial-disclosure forms filed by state legislators in 1999 and 2000 suggests that taxpayers foot the bill for at least $3 million in expenses the lawmakers incur each year in connection with their travel to ALECsponsored meetings. That means each year a significant amount of taxpayer money is helping ALEC do its business, which is predominantly aimed at advancing corporate special interests.

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.

Similarly, in 1995, State Representative Richard Morgan of North Carolina, the powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee, sent an especially brazen appeal to lobbyists on ALEC letterhead. “ALEC is the only national organization where business leaders serve side by side with legislators on the same boards and task forces developing model state legislation,” Morgan said in his letter. “In anticipation of a record-breaking crowd at this year’s annual meeting, we invite you to support our North Carolina legislators by making a contribution to the ALEC scholarship fund. Your donation will be used to help pay for scholarships so North Carolina lawmakers can attend the ALEC annual meeting, August 9-13 in San Diego, California.” (Morgan’s request for donations came after lobbyists for USAir arranged a special discount airfare for legislators and their spouses to fly to the event.)(18)

And in 1997, state legislators in New York held a fund-raising reception at the Fort Orange Club where lobbyists were asked to make their checks payable to the “ALEC-NY Scholarship Fund,” according to an account in The (Albany) Times Union.(19) As it turned out, the funds were to pay for travel, lodging and registration fees for twenty New York lawmakers to attend ALEC’s annual meeting in New Orleans that year.

“If it’s truly an educational experience, the taxpayers should pay for it,” Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group told a reporter for The Times Union. “If the legislators don’t think they can defend it, they shouldn’t go or they should pay for it themselves.” Horner said that the “scholarship fund” was merely another form of influence peddling — as well as way to get around the gift limits for state legislators. “This crosses the line, when they want to go to a conference at a nice place and they ask lobbyists to pick up the tab,” he said.

The image of state legislators shaking down lobbyists to pay for their trips has been strong enough in some states to induce lawmakers to turn the ALEC meetings into state-sanctioned — and financed — events.

In 2001, for example, the Utah Senate and House decided to stop asking lobbyists to pay for the trips of state legislators to various ALECsponsored functions. Traditionally, State Representative Marda Dillree had organized two fund-raisers a year specifically for that purpose. But House Speaker Marty Stephens, who has participated in various ALEC activities, led a successful effort to have taxpayers pick up the tab instead. 

“It got to a point where ALEC fund-raising looked to some like a lobbyist was buying a trip [for a specific lawmaker],” Stephens told a reporter for Salt Lake City’s Deseret News (20), explaining that some legislators would ask lobbyists to contribute to a fund-raiser so that they could go to one of the ALEC meetings. About seventeen Utah lawmakers attended ALEC’s 2000 annual meeting in New York City under the state- pay system, Dillree told the Deseret News. “The Legislature pays for the trip,” she added, “but each lawmaker still pays the $50 yearly ALEC membership fee.” [The membership fee is actually $50 for two years.]

The Deseret News (21) had reported earlier in the year that Dillree was among the “double-dippers” in the Utah Legislature — lawmakers who used their tax-exempt campaign treasuries to pay for meals, lodging, and travel expenses for which they were later reimbursed from official state accounts. Dillree reportedly used about $3,800 in funds from her campaign account to pay for travel expenses she incurred in 1999 and 2000 in connection with her involvement in ALEC. But state records, the newspaper reported, showed that Dillree, who was on official state business when she attended the ALEC meetings, was reimbursed for the same expenses by the Legislature. The money was not returned to her campaign account.

“I don’t see it as a double dip,” Dillree told the newspaper. “I think of all the time I spend in meetings I don’t get paid a dime for, and all the [conferences] I have gone to and not been reimbursed. My thinking is it is a legitimate use of campaign money.”

Dillree, however, apparently recognized that she shifted tax-exempt campaign funds to personal use. She told The Deseret News that she paid income taxes on the reimbursement. 

The newspaper also reported that House Speaker Stephens used funds from his campaign account so that his wife could accompany him to ALEC meetings. Stephens said that he had declared the expenditures as personal — and thus taxable — income. “If you take it out [of a campaign account] for personal reasons,” the newspaper quoted him as saying, “you have to take it as income and pay taxes.”

Nationwide, gaping holes in state ethics and financial-disclosure laws allow many state legislators to receive gifts in secrecy. What’s more, in the vast majority of states, state legislators do not have to report gifts received by their spouses and children. As a consequence, ALEC and its corporate sponsors can offer state legislators a large assortment of valuable perquisites that, in almost all cases, lawmakers do not have to include on their financial-disclosure forms -- this, despite the obvious potential conflict of interest. ALEC’s 28th annual meeting, in New York City, included, among other events: a “Grand Opening Reception” complete with food, entertainment, and a replica of the Statute of Liberty (courtesy of Philip Morris Management Corporation and United Parcel Service); open-until-midnight hospitality suites (courtesy of Primedia, Inc., and DaimlerChrysler Corporation); a variety of “spouse tours” (courtesy of Intuit, Inc.); an “ALEC’s Kids’ Congress” where children were “constantly entertained and cared for from morning until night” (courtesy of Pfizer, Inc.); a “family night” at Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex (courtesy of Keystone  Automotive Industries, Inc.); and an end-of-convention golf tournament (courtesy of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company).

Who could blame many state legislators if they look at ALEC’s annual meeting as the vacation bargain of the year and end up somewhat beholden to ALEC and the corporate sponsors?

State Secrets
The holes in state ethics and financial-disclosure laws make it impossible to determine exactly how many state legislators have their trips to various ALEC-sponsored meetings paid for by others— taxpayers, campaign contributors, corporations, and ALEC itself — as well as how many bring along members of their families in the same fashion. In a dozen states, for example, legislators may accept gifts from outside interests and take trips paid for by outside interests without fear of any public scrutiny or criticism—no disclosure of any kind is required. Those states are Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont. (See Appendix.)

In yet other states, the disclosure rules are so lax that state legislators do not have to report such basic information as the costs, dates, and sources of funds for trips. In Arizona, for example, State Senator Brenda Burns, who served as ALEC’s national chairman in 1999, merely reported the following on the financial-disclosure form she filed with the state in 2000: “Reimbursement (travel, hotel) of meetings for: American Legislative Exchange Council.” How much did Burns get, and from whom? It’s impossible to tell.

In states with tighter disclosure rules, lawmakers can legally report next to no information about who pays for their trips to ALEC-sponsored meetings. Consider the case of State Senator Robert T. Welch of Wisconsin, who serves as ALEC’s state chair. In the “Statement of Economic Interests” that he filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Board for 1999, Welch, on the part of the form that asks lawmakers to “list sources of honoraria and payment of expenses related to your state government duties (more than $50) not previously reported to the Ethics Board,” reported the following: Payer — “ALEC;” Approximate value of expenses — “$4,450”; Circumstances of receipt —“Annual meetings.”

A review of applicable state ethics and financial-disclosure requirements, coupled with an examination of financial-disclosure forms filed by state legislators whose names appear on a list of state “leaders” published by ALEC, suggests that most of the economic benefits provided to state legislators in connection with ALEC-sponsored meetings and other activities goes unreported. (See Appendix.)

Consequently, newspaper, magazine, and wire-service stories may provide the best running account of how the ALEC “system” works. Here are some snapshots, drawn from news accounts over the years, of ALEC in action in the United States and abroad:

1989. At least fifty state legislators from Missouri will be flying to Monterey, California, in July for ALEC’s five-day national conference, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.(22) Some of the legislators readily acknowledge that among the lures is the conference’s proximity to the ocean. The conference is expected to cost at least $1,250 for each legislator, according to estimates of the Missouri State Senate. That includes $300 for airfare, a $200 registration fee, as much as $107 a night for lodging, and $50 a day for meals. Senators will dip into the Senate’s travel contingency fund to cover the bill. While workshops on issues such as foreign trade and public utility regulation are scheduled in the week, one day is devoted primarily to fun: golf and tennis tournaments and a countryside trek that includes touring author John Steinbeck’s home in Salinas and tasting wine in Gonzales. 

In Florida, ALEC spent more than $35,000 to have at least 23 state legislators and their spouses attend its conference in Monterey, California, the St. Petersburg Times reports. ALEC, which raised money from major corporations, paid more than $35,000 for these lawmakers to attend; side trips to Napa Valley and San Francisco were financed by lobbyists.(23)

1990. At least 18 members of the Illinois House attended ALEC’s summer convention in Boston at taxpayer expense, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.(24) The newspaper’s survey of legislative travel records shows that some lawmakers mixed business with pleasure. The expense report filed by Representative Timothy Johnson, for example, shows that he flew to Boston four days before the start of the ALEC convention on July 25 so that he could attend the Boston Celtics basketball camp. Johnson did not bill the state for the camp, but he did submit bills for four nights in Boston, including two before the convention started. And his expense report shows that he left the convention two days early for “personal vacation time on the East Coast” before flying back to Illinois at state expense. Johnson, who was reimbursed for $1,228 in expenses in connection with the ALEC convention, said that while he may not have attended “every single session,” he did not leave early and actually had saved the taxpayers money. “I could have reimbursed myself for another $1,500,” he said. “Anyone who would look at this would say I slanted it on the side of not reimbursing myself.”

1994. In an offer that may be at odds with Iowa’s campaign-finance laws, Representative Roger Halvorson told legislators that he would help them raise campaign money to pay for trips to Florida for an ALEC-sponsored meeting, The Des Moines Register reports.(25) In a letter dated April 15, Halvorson encouraged lawmakers to attend the ALEC conference, which is scheduled for April 2-7 in Tampa. Based on the instructional nature of the meeting, Halvorson said in his letter, lawmakers could use campaign funds to pay for their trips. “You can use your campaign fund for these expenses, as it is totally educational,” he wrote. “If you need campaign fund assistance, I would be happy to talk to some of ALEC’s friends who can assist you.” The ALEC conference also includes such recreational activities as a golf tournament (sponsored by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company), skeet and trap shooting (sponsored by the National Rifle Association), and a trip to Busch Gardens (sponsored by Anheuser-Busch Companies).

1996. About 18 state legislators from Colorado will be attending ALEC’s annual meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, “where the very wealthy used to summer in huge mansions that caught the cooling salt breezes,” the Rocky Mountain News reports.(26)

Only six of the 18 will have their expenses paid by the state, the Denver-based newspapers reports; the rest will rely on “scholarships” that, it says, “are actually subsidies provided by corporate sponsors.”

1997. At least 24 Texas legislators attended ALEC’s annual meeting in New Orleans, the Austin-American Statesman reports.(27) The newspaper says that some legislators charged taxpayers for their travel costs, while others used campaign funds or paid their own way.

State Representative Warren Chisum told the newspaper that some of his colleagues use the summer conferences as vacations. “I wish they wouldn’t do that,” he said. “I know not everyone is interested in every issue, but I would encourage them that when they come to these conferences, they come for a purpose.”