ALEC And Jeb Bush Are Conspiring To Kill Off Public Schools For Good [View all]

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http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/26/alec-jeb-bush-conspiring-kill-public-schools-good.html



ALEC And Jeb Bush Are Conspiring To Kill Off Public Schools For Good
By: Dennis S more from Dennis S
Tuesday, August, 26th, 2014, 9:43 pm

Even the most successful of power-mad schemers need reliable co-conspirators to accomplish their nefarious ends. The most power-mad of the power-mad, the American Legislative Exchange Council, relies on easily compromised spear-carriers to dominate state legislatures and push through model-legislation designed to benefit ALEC’s multi-national, special interest corporate donor base.

It was by pure happenstance I chanced upon such a co-conspirator the other day. It actually turned out to be three co-conspirators. I was digging through the South Carolina Ethics Commission’s statements of economic interests required of state and legislative office holders and their challengers. These interests include name, address, filing date, business and property interest, creditors, government contracts, lobbyist contacts and, most importantly, who is buying legislator’s votes through the section marked “gifts.”

I concentrated on my local delegation of seated representatives. On my first search, an initialism (thus termed when an acronym is unpronounceable) popped up that I’d never seen or heard of before. It appeared as SLLF. Whatever it was had gifted one of my local state delegations with a total of nearly $3,100 for the gift of a single trip. Not bad. There are some economy overseas jaunts you can take for three grand. The stipend covered ‘tuition,’ lodging and meals. As I looked at the economic interests of my other local representatives, SLLF appeared over and over. Four of my six house members accepted SLLF’s largess. This definitely called for further study.

It took but seconds to find the expanded version of SLLF. It stood for State Legislative Leaders Foundation. Here’s their charge “The State Legislative Leaders Foundation was established in 1972 as a nonprofit corporation dedicated to working with state legislative leaders in their efforts to reform the institution of the state legislature.” Reform is an interesting choice of words considering their Board Chairman is Eric Turner, Indiana House Speaker Pro Tem, who most recently attracted the attention of the legislative Ethics Commission for secretly attempting to kill a bill that would hurt his family business. Might we continue?