No. What I'm saying is, to the extent that happens, "model legislation" doesn't enable it; in fact, if anything, it (marginally) increases transparency by making at least some of those influence attempts traceable (this happens by design, since the point of ALEC-style model legislation is to write it once and then present it in multiple state houses).
If the question is, "do you like ALEC", the answer in my case is "obviously no" (I wasted a bunch of money in the last election cycle if my goal was to support ALEC). But I don't see what's problematic about this particular mechanism ALEC uses, and I think it would probably be better if more interest groups --- nonprofit, public, corporate, what have you) adopted it.
Sort of like the conversations people have about the Federalist Society (the back-bench for potential conservative federal judicial candidates) --- seeing the Federalist Society as a shadowy malign influence just seems silly to me. It seems obvious that the proper response to the Federalists is to stand up a countervailing progressive judicial network --- and, of course, that exists (it's the ACS); it's just much worse at marketing itself.
Meanwhile, it's not as if anyone is unclear on who these organizations are! No Democratic Senator endorses a Federalist Society pick because it came from the Federalists! No Democratic state representative swoons over an ALEC bill! If your local state senator doesn't know who ALEC is, they're incompetent and need to be booted out of office.
If the question is, "do you like ALEC", the answer in my case is "obviously no" (I wasted a bunch of money in the last election cycle if my goal was to support ALEC). But I don't see what's problematic about this particular mechanism ALEC uses, and I think it would probably be better if more interest groups --- nonprofit, public, corporate, what have you) adopted it.
Sort of like the conversations people have about the Federalist Society (the back-bench for potential conservative federal judicial candidates) --- seeing the Federalist Society as a shadowy malign influence just seems silly to me. It seems obvious that the proper response to the Federalists is to stand up a countervailing progressive judicial network --- and, of course, that exists (it's the ACS); it's just much worse at marketing itself.
Meanwhile, it's not as if anyone is unclear on who these organizations are! No Democratic Senator endorses a Federalist Society pick because it came from the Federalists! No Democratic state representative swoons over an ALEC bill! If your local state senator doesn't know who ALEC is, they're incompetent and need to be booted out of office.