USA Today newspaper and network investigation on special interests writing a significant number of state legislative acts

State Legislatures are notorious for passing legislation putting unfunded mandates on localities and restricting the ability of cities to pass laws.  For example, concerning the environment, smoke free environments, business initiatives, etc.

-- "States Are Blocking Local Regulations, Often at Industry's Behest," New York Times, 2015
-- "Blue Cities Want to Make Their Own Rules. Red States Won't Let Them," New York times, 2017

It's not news that the American Legislative Exchange Council, a pro-business and anti-tax lobby figured out that they could have a lot of impact by focusing on state legislatures.

What is news is the depth of their success, as documented by USA Today in a two-year investigation that includes follow up, state-specific articles published in various Gannett Newspapers across the country.

From "What is ALEC? 'The most effective organization' for conservatives, says Newt Gingrich":

The American Legislative Exchange Council became the nation’s best-known "model"-bill factory over its four decades by providing more than fill-in-the-blank legislation.

The industry-sponsored group has weathered controversy and flourished because it also offers conservative Republican elected officials a social network, access to campaign donors and a blueprint for how to accelerate their political careers.

The networking takes place at ALEC's annual meetings, where the group fetes and entertains lawmakers and their families. Relationships are forged over drinks and dinners, where lawmakers sit alongside conservative luminaries and corporate chiefs.

“What ALEC does is more than provide the model bills, they provide relationships,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, an assistant professor at Columbia University who has studied the influence of ALEC and other conservative groups on state legislatures. “They approach you when you are first elected and build these enduring social connections with you.”

By the end of each ALEC conference, attendees leave motivated to evangelize for conservative policies and equipped with ready-made legislation.

-- "Copy, Paste, Legislate: A visual introduction"--
-- "Used car dealers didn’t want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a law to avoid it"
-- "Stand your ground, right to work and bathroom bills: 5 model bills that spark controversy"
-- "How we uncovered 10,000 times lawmakers introduced copycat model bills — and why it matters"
-- "What's the solution for model bills? Reveal who wrote them, critics say"

And coverage by other newspapers in the Gannett Newspaper chain includes:

-- "Bills banning local plastic bag regulations use ALEC model," Montgomery Advertiser
-- "Model bills have foothold in Montana Legislature," Great Falls Tribune
-- "Kentucky lawmakers didn't write these bills. But many are now laws," Louisville Courier-Journal
-- "Mississippi leads nation in filing legislation that other people wrote," Jackson Clarion Ledger
-- "Why some Iowa legislation looks a lot like bills crafted by special interest groups," Des Moines Register

For all the complaints about USA Today's origins as "McPaper" ("At 25, 'McPaper' Is All Grown Up," New York Times), these days, like the New York Times, it uses its position as a "national newspaper" to undertake investigations that have implications beyond a particular city or state.

Apparently, the investigation grew out of reporting over the years by the Phoenix-based Arizona Republic concerning the impact of measures of and involvement by ALEC in the state legislature ("Unchaining Democracy in Arizona," Blog for Arizona).

Another growth machine lesson: the David Wilmot edition

I frequently tout the Growth Machine thesis first discussed by Sociologist Harvey Molotch in a 1976 article in the American Journal of Sociology, "The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place." His basic point is that despite seeming intra-elite competition, local political and economic elites are united on a pro-growth, pro-land use intensification agenda.

More to the point, former GWU professor Howard Gillette's book, Between Justice and Beauty describes the tension in the local political economy over "social justice" vs. land use issues. Part of the definition of the social justice argument has to do with the development of a local African-American business elite.

This is also covered in the long out-of-print tome Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C., 1964-1994 (Washington Monthly review), which in chapter 4, brings these threads together over land use and the provision of pieces of the action to local players.

This argument has played forward ever since, as new administrations have their own favored players from their posses (e.g., Fenty vs. Gray and the Council about the lottery, Fenty's buddies getting parks department and other contracts, etc.)

David Wilmot, featured in a piece in the Washington Times yesterday, "A familiar face in D.C. Wal-Mart deal: Company lobbyist has financial interest in land chosen for store," about self-dealing with regard to a tract of land at New Jersey Avenue and H Street NW where a local group received development rights but left the land fallow for 20+ years, is perhaps the king of the kind of dealing described in Dream City.

He is a lobbyist, a lawyer representing clients with tough issues they need to express, he is a government contractor (his group homes have come under attack for poor service, but he gets big income as president of the organization and so do his friends, "Nickles Drags Wilmot Back to Court" from the Washington City Paper), he has a small piece of the predominately Hispanic owned Marriott Courtyard hotel next to the New York Avenue Metro Station (D.C.’s first Hispanic-owned Marriott set to open" from the Washington Business Journal ), etc.

There is another Washington Times piece today about the DC Government response to yesterday's reporting, "D.C. officials declare end to ‘land bank’: Developers must build or get out," but the reality is that this purported desire to strengthen procedures will never happen.

The "system" is set up to work the way it does to benefit developers and the well-connected, not to generate better returns for DC Government and the citizens of the city.

If it changes, I'll be incredibly surprised.

DC's corruption network

(The term "corruption network" was used in last Sunday's NYT Magazine piece on El Paso, "Life on the Line Between El Paso and Juárez," and I liked the sound of it.)

Mike DeBonis' column, "D.C. officials’ use of lobbyists as their attorneys raises questions," in today's Post is about the incestuous relationships between lawyers, in particular David Wilmot and Frederick Cooke, who serve as lobbyists on DC Government matters and also represent DC government appointed and elected officials in white collar criminal matters.

The column fails to mention that the incestuous relationships go further, as David Wilmot, Frederick Cooke, and Scott Bolden are also DC Government contractors (see the 2009 Post article, "Lobbyist's salary for nonprofit overseeing group homes challenged"), raking in lots of dough as board members for a "nonprofit" providing services to profoundly developmentally disabled adults, Individual Development Inc.

Also see "D.C. lobbyists rake in the dough in first half of 2010" from the Washington Business Journal on how these same people are prodigious fundraisers for local politicians.

Compliments of Mike DeBonis, here is a link to an article from a 1995 edition of the Washington City Paper on these same people, "Tag Team: Need something done at city hall? Call David Wilmot or Fred Cooke, the District's premier power brokers."

(At a community meeting probably 7 years ago, I pissed Scott Bolden off when he was running for City Council, and he claimed he could help people even more than he was currently, if only were he elected to City Council. I challenged him, saying something like "you help businesses and the well-connected, not people like us" and he got really pissed.)

DC Special election and who to vote for Council

Well, between the City Paper endorsement, "Vote for Bryan Weaver" and GGW's "Vote Bryan Weaver for DC Council at-large," I was ready to vote for and endorse Bryan Weaver.

Yes, the Post endorsed Patrick Mara, "Patrick Mara for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council," and my desire for outsider candidates to mix things up means I have a predilection to vote for Patrick, or Alan Page, candidate for the Statehood-Green party.

The Post has a pretty poor track record lately in endorsing the iconoclastic candidate for various slots. Basically, if they get the Post endorsement, the candidate is almost assured of losing (e.g., in the 2010 election, Dave Hedgpeth, Ward 3; Tim Day, Ward 5 in the general election; Adrian Fenty as Mayor; Vincent Orange for Council Chair in the primary--all lost).

But the discussion in the GGW entry reminds me that the real issue is does Vincent Orange get elected, because he has the biggest name recognition and the most money. Now, name recognition and money hasn't helped him for at large races before, either for Council Chairman or for Mayor. But since so few people tend to vote in special elections, maybe money and name recognition is enough to be first past the post.

The reason that I can't vote for Vincent Orange is that for the most part he is the candidate for political entrepreneurialism interests--where lawyers and business people with political connections manipulate the levers of government to favor their interests over others. (In fact, for the first time ever I voted for Kwame Brown, because Vincent Orange was running against him in the primary for Council Chairman.)

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From "Bring Back the Robber Barons: There's a big difference between entrepreneurs who make a fortune in the market, and those who do so by gaming the government" in the Wall Street Journal:

Market entrepreneurs like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Hill built businesses on product and price. Hill was the railroad magnate who finished his transcontinental line without a public land grant. Rockefeller took on and beat the world's dominant oil power at the time, Russia. Rockefeller innovated his way to energy primacy for the U.S.

Political entrepreneurs, by contrast, made money back then by gaming the political system. Steamship builder Robert Fulton acquired a 30-year monopoly on Hudson River steamship traffic from, no surprise, the New York legislature. Cornelius Vanderbilt, with the slogan "New Jersey must be free," broke Fulton's government-granted monopoly.

Note that this thesis is a bit oversimplified as Rockefeller and others not only built businesses on product and price, but through manipulation of business practices and relationships, in ways that benefited them extranormally, but you get the idea.

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Vincent Orange and his relationships with uber lobbyists like former Councilman John Ray, now lawyer at Manatt Phelps, makes him in no way the outsider he is claiming he can be, able to focus on cleaning up local government. He getting back onto Council, well, it scares me.

A perfect example of this was the designation through City Council legislation of favored interests as the master developers of the Florida Market, without there ever having been a request for proposals. It was one of the dirtiest deals I had witnessed as an involved citizen.

There are other examples like that which means that I can't vote for him and worry that he will get elected. So does that mean voting for Sekou Biddle, because since there are so many candidates, he has the best chance of winning, even though but because he is the candidate of the political machine?

The Democratic Party is worried that enough people will follow the Post's logic, from the editorial:

We enthusiastically endorse Patrick Mara. We think it would be healthy to temper the one-party domination of D.C. government, but that’s only the beginning of an argument. Mr. Mara is a socially progressive, fiscally conservative Republican who would bring diversity of thought and approach to the 13-member body. He has the strength to stand up for his beliefs but the pragmatism to form coalitions.

and vote for Patrick Mara. The Dems have a robocall operation active now, calling people and imploring them to not be fooled, and to vote Democratic in any case.

Hey, I wanted to support Patrick. I am pretty sure I voted for him back in 2008. We've talked before and he reads this blog, so he can't be half bad right? But we don't share the same positions on education issues and I think historic preservation as well. Plus, while I agree that the city shouldn't look at its citizens as ATMs, the City Paper captures my reticence about jumping on the Mara campaign:

Mara, who won the Post over, says the council needs tougher oversight of itself and the rest of the government, and he’s right. But his sense that taxes are way too high in D.C. doesn’t jibe with reality (many District residents actually pay less than they would in Arlington, Alexandria, or Montgomery counties). His reveries about gentrification in Columbia Heights only infrequently seem to be matched with a sense that the city could be doing more to manage the changes that have led a young, white Republican to want to live in the neighborhood. And though Mara’s no Tea Party aficionado, we’re not quite ready to enlist with the GOP.

A graduate of Howard University, the Statehood-Green candidate Alan Page is a lawyer who has lived in the H Street neighborhood for about 10 years. He's worked on neighborhood issues, he's done a variety of entrepreneurial things. I met Alan and his family (before Amina was born, but on the way) at meetings focused on the revitalization of the H Street commercial district. I want to vote for Alan out of sentiment and a preference for third party representation in local politics. But does Vincent Orange scare me more?

This is where I wish we had more options such as Instant Runoff Voting (see "Standard voting creates strategic quandary for at-large race" from GGW) or other forms of preferential voting (such as Ranked Choice Voting), see my past blog entry, "The highly paid DC City Council and governance and voting systems" as well as the entry "Does DC need more Councilmembers?" from GGW.

Combining strategy and sentiment, in an instant runoff system, I would probably vote like this:

1. Weaver

2. Page

3. Mara

4. Biddle

knowing that if my preferred candidates dropped out of the running, I would still have a vote in the running "against" Orange.

Alan Page, and his daughter Amina. (We can see ourselves growing older in seeing how children grow up. I remember Amina as a baby. Now look at her.)