“They go for a few days and they’re in these hotels together with corporate lobbyists, discussing policies and voting as equals with these corporate lobbyists or trade association lobbyists or whatever,” David Armiak, research director at the Wisconsin-based watchdog nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy, told MTFP. “Their constituents do not get that same type of access, and these representatives and senators are not voted into office by special interests, they’re voted in by their constituents.”
ALEC is no stranger in the Montana Capitol. According to the Center for Media and Democracy’s ALEC Exposed project, dozens of Montana’s Republican lawmakers have joined the organization in the past, with several attending national ALEC conferences. Some of ALEC’s key policy goals have sprouted in past sessions as well, though few managed to bud.