Republicans Salivating As Their Vision Of A Right-Wing Dystopia Comes Into Clearer Focus

With Sandy Adams now in Congress, most observers would agree that Rep. Rachel Burgin (R-Tampa), a graduate of an unaccredited Bible "School" who majored in "biblical studies," is the stupidest member of the Florida legislature. Last week she introduced a bill calling on the federal government to reduce taxes on corporations. The bill was written-- as almost all state legislative bills are across the country (something we saw yesterday when we looked at the toxic Alabama anti-immigrant bill, written by slick Kansas Know Nothing Kris Kobach) by outside special interests, more often than not, the Koch-owned ALEC. Burgin, who even Republicans in the legislature, see as an embarrassing moron, accidentally included ALEC's actual mission statement in her bill.

It's not exactly a secret that lawmakers often don't actually write the laws they introduce. Sometimes they rely on aides, but sometimes they just pretty much copy and paste language pre-written for them by outside groups. Most, however, aren't as lazy about it as Burgin.

...So, yes, Burgin had introduced a bill that was written word-for-word by ALEC, but what exactly is ALEC? It describes itself as "a nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers," and boasts that about a third of state legislators across the country are members. However, state lawmakers aren't the only members. The group boasts several corporate members.

"Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights," claims the site ALEC Exposed. "These so-called 'model bills' reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations."

How much influence exactly the corporate members have over the bills that are crafted, and the group claims that corporate members get no vote on which model bills the group adapts.

Regardless, Burgin's dumb mistake inadvertently gave Floridians a clearer peak into how our legislative sausage is made.

The Kochs find it easier-- and even cheaper-- to control rinky-dink state legislatures that Republicans and teabaggers overran in 2010. And they're doing it everywhere. I hope you either listened to the broadcast or read the transcript of the anti-immigrant post linked to above. Especially chilling-- and it was all chilling, was a prediction from conservative Montgomery Democrat Joe Hubbard: "The politics of this bill are very good for the Republicans, I think. A Republican operative told me the other day that this bill's polling very high in popularity in Alabama. Expect to see this same bill, HB56-- it's already been in South Carolina passed-- expect to see it in many other Republican-controlled legislatures." That's how the GOP rolls. Alabama and Arizona were labs for their poison and now they'll spread it across the country. (According to CNN, 5% of the GOP caucus attendees in Nevada yesterday were Latinos. What must be going on in their minds?)

And in light of the equally horrible ALEC-writen union-busting legislation passed by the Indiana Republican legislature and eagerly signed by a zombie governor who once said a right-to-work law would be a bad idea for his state, Doug Foote warned that the Indiana battle was just another opening salvo in the right-wing's war against American workers. The main of objective of these misnamed "right-to-work " laws is to lower wages and pulverize unions. Indiana is the 23rd state to pass such legislation.

Unfortunately, anti-worker forces in other states are looking to follow Indiana’s lead.

In Ohio:

An Ohio group has been cleared to continue its effort to push a ballot initiative that would keep workers covered by labor contracts from having to join a union or pay dues.

Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday said Ohioans for Workplace Freedom has provided a “fair and truthful” summary of its proposed right-to-work amendment.

In Minnesota:

A bill to put the right-to-work issue on the November ballot is being authored by state Republicans Sen. Dave Thompson from Lakeville and Rep. Steve Drazkowski from Mazeppa.

And in Michigan:

Some Michigan Republicans have been pressuring Governor Snyder to get behind a right to work bill in Michigan but he wants nothing to do with it, reiterating during congressional testimony yesterday that it would just bring everything to a grinding halt in Lansing.

The political situations in all of these states are different, but fortunately they are all tougher terrain for union-busting bills than Indiana.

Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich has not expressed interest in making “right-to-work” a priority, especially after his similarly anti-worker Senate Bill 5 got overwhelmingly spanked last year at the polls. “If people in this state feel that you need right-to-work, I don’t think people even know what that is,” Kasich said. That’s politician code for “please, leave me out of this.”

Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder is trying to position himself as the moderate of the freshman bunch. Talking about the backlashes in Wisconsin and Ohio, Snyder indicated he doesn’t want a similar situation in Lansing. “If you want to draw it as a contrast, you look at now that they’ve had those things happen, do they have a productive environment to solve problems? Not necessarily,” he told the Huffington Post, “They’re still overcoming the divisiveness, the hard feelings from all of that.”

And thanks in part to Working America pounding the pavement in 2010, Minnesota working families have an ally in Governor Mark Dayton, who opposes right to work. However, he doesn’t have the power to veto constitutional amendments proposed by the majority of the legislature. The current effort by Republican legislators is to put the issue on the November ballot.

All these efforts pale in comparison to Arizona’s blitzkrieg against public unions that caught workers by surprise this week. A series of bills were introduced late at night on Monday and passed out of committee just 48 hours later-- including a Wisconsin-style bill that would ban unions from representing any state, county, or municipal employee.

Workers without unions has always been a key to a right-wing-- or any kind of authoritarian-- dystopia. And Mitt Romney, who claims he understands business, would just love to preside over that. But even if he can't, Republicans know how easy it is for them to do it through legislatures. Blue America is building up a page to stop them on that level.