Hank Johnson: “Ladies and gentlemen, a shadowy collection of wealthy businesses and conservative Tea Party Republican State lawmakers…”

“Ladies and gentlemen, a shadowy collection of wealthy businesses and conservative Tea Party Republican State lawmakers is undermining our democracy. Last week I discussed the connection between the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, and the proliferation of shoot first and ask questions later legislation that supported the Trayvon Martin case that we all know about, and other draconian criminal justice laws. According to the New York Times: ALEC lawmakers typically introduced more than 1,000 bills based on model legislation each year and passed about 17 percent of them. A members-only newsletter from 1995, found in an online archive of tobacco company documents, bluntly characterized that success ratio as a ``good investment.'' I agree. ALEC's corporate members have gotten an outstanding return on their investments, but it's been at yours and my expense. Due to ALEC, the NRA, and the private for-profit prison industry, we are all less safe and more likely to be put in jail. The for-profit prison industry, on the other hand, has reaped huge financial rewards from ALEC-sponsored efforts to incarcerate more Americans and put them, as well as illegal immigrants, into this private prison system. For the private prison industry, where some of the inmates are paid as low as 2 cents an hour to produce goods that are later sold for profit, business is booming. But ALEC does not stop there.…”