Whose Law Is It Anyway? ALEC’s Influence on State Legislatures and What We Can Do About It
Session Type(s): Panel
Training Tag(s): Organizing & Movement Building, Local
Starts: Thursday, Jun. 7 3:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Jun. 7 4:15 PM (Eastern)
The American Legislative Exchange Council has been behind virtually every major right-wing state law in the past two years, including union-busting, teacher-bashing, voter suppression, attacks on immigrants, privatizing basic public services and gutting environmental and health regulations. Learn more about ALEC, who backs them and what you can do to stand in their way.
Whose Law Is It Anyway? ALEC’s Influence on State Leg
GREAT #NN12 PANEL ON ALEC – AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL
Storified by Netroots Nation · Thu, Jun 07 2012 17:00:19
Moderator
Rashad Robinson
Rashad Robinson is the President of Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. Driven by over one million members, Color Of Change builds power for Black people and Black communities, moving decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people and all people. Robinson helped Color Of Change lead winning campaigns forcing over 100 corporations to stop funding ALEC, frame and win net neutrality as a major civil rights issue, and force Pat Buchanan and Bill O’Reilly off the air. Successful Color Of Change strategies have been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fast Company and The Hollywood Reporter, and on CNN, NPR, PBS and MSNBC. In 2015, Fast Company named Color Of Change the 6th Most Innovative Company in the world, and in 2016, the Stanford Social Innovation Review profiled Color Of Change. Robinson is the proud recipient of awards from organizations as varied as ADCOLOR, the United Church of Christ and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation. He serves on the boards of Demos and the Hazen Foundation. He is a monthly columnist for The Guardian.
Other sessions: Criminal Justice in America
Panelists
Aniello Alioto
Aniello Alioto, National Political Director of ProgressNow and ProgressNow Education since July 2009, wields extensive experience in both issue and candidate campaigns. Aniello specializes in effective coalition dynamics, online advocacy, information management and campaign messaging. Aniello holds a M.A. in Diplomacy from the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, as well as a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Louisville. When not working, Aniello is likely to be found exploring lesser-traveled corners of the globe, making cheese at home, learning new languages, laughing at pictures of monkeys or cooking for friends and colleagues.
Kim Anderson
Kim Anderson currently serves as Director of the Center for Advocacy at the National Education Association (NEA). In this role, Ms. Anderson oversees the organization’s Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy Department, Government Relations Department, and Human and Civil Rights Department. The Center is responsible for advancing the NEA’s mission, vision, and core values through federal and intergovernmental advocacy, collective bargaining and representational advocacy, and social justice advocacy.
During Ms. Anderson’s ten year tenure at the NEA, she previously directed the Government Relations department and was responsible for advancing policy on behalf of NEA’s 3.2 million members at the federal level and within intergovernmental organizations. Prior to that, as Manager for Issue Advocacy in the Campaigns and Elections Department, Ms. Anderson oversaw the NEA’s independent expenditure projects, issue advocacy work, ballot measure efforts and helped represent NEA in numerous national coalitions and partnerships.
Marge Baker
Marge Baker oversees People For’s policy and programmatic work, including its campaigns on the courts, nominations, LGBT equality, voting rights and elections. She has worked for more than 35 years in various public service roles. Prior to her current position she was the Staff Director for the late Senator Paul Wellstone on the Senate’s Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee. Ms. Baker is a graduate of Yale Law School, clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, served as Chief Counsel to Senator Howard Metzenbaum on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and directed the Consumer Services Division of the New York Department of Public Service. Ms. Baker is married, and has three children, ages 26, 28, and 31.
John Carey
John Carey is communications director with the National Public Pension Coalition (NPPC). NPPC represents millions of teachers, nurses, police, firefighters and other public sector employees – has worked to protect the financial security of working families who rely on public pensions. NPPC works with a national network of state and local coalition efforts to protect public pensions. Prior to joining NPPC, John was at Americans for Financial Reform.
John has more than a decade of management and administrative experience influencing policy-makers, constituency groups and voters through local, state, and national campaigns. His communications experience includes press outreach, news monitoring, on-line outreach, and rapid response. John’s field experience includes managing grassroots and grasstops lobbying campaigns and managing paid and volunteer staff for phone banks, canvasses, and other voter contact efforts.
John lives in Centreville, VA with his wife, Tara, and their children Emma and Jack. He enjoys athletics, politics, and cooking.
Lisa Graves
Lisa Graves is Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the publisher of ALECexposed.org (its award-winning investigation of the American Legislative Exchange Council), PRWatch.org, SourceWatch.org, and BanksterUSA.org. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Deputy Chief of the Article III Judges Division at the U.S. Courts, and Senior Legislative Strategist for the ACLU on national security issues, among other posts. Reach her on twitter: thelisagraves and email: lisa@prwatch.org.