Last Saturday, I wrote about how 2016 Democratic candidate for Governor John Gregg was a member of ALEC while Speaker of the Indiana House. John Gregg's campaign just released a statement on this:
"When ALEC was started up decades ago it was a bi-partisan group that focused on balancing state budgets. John along with other members of the General Assembly from both parties were members. John left the General Assembly and therefore all memberships that came along with his position. Since that time ALEC morphed into what it is today. He has repeatedly asked ALEC to stop using his name - but like other Democrats who are still in politics from that time (Democratic State Sen. Frank Mrvan for instance) they refuse. They try to appear bi-partisan by using people's names without their permission - knowing those folks were never really members. John never attended a conference or anything of the sort. Please help us spread the word about ALEC's misuse of John's name and others and stop their attempt to divide us."
Let me briefly chronicle the reasons this is a ridiculous response. ALEC has had a radical right-wing agenda since day one. One of it's founders
famously declared: "I don't want everybody to vote ... As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Guess photo id and other voter suppression measures were a forseeable possibility. Just a few of the model bills in ALEC's 1995 Sourcebook, actually dedicated to the Koch Brothers: Right To Work Act, Prevailing Wage Repeal Act, Privatization Initiative Panel Act, Prison Industries Act, Charter Schools Act, Educational Enterprise Zone Act, Rent Control Preemption Act, Asbestos in Educational Facilities/or Public Buildings Act, Resolution to Restore State Sovereignty.
Last, but not least. Let us remember also the ALEC declared: the homosexual world is pedophilia, the fetish for young children.” If that's not sick enough, consider this. ALEC actually opposed divestment ordinances targeting Apartheid South Africa. Well, I guess we know now who it is that ALEC didn't want to vote, and John Gregg was associating with these people. I know John Gregg. I don't think he's a homophobe, or a racist ... but I question whether he has the spine to actually take a stand against the people who are, given his unwillingness to own the fact that ALEC was even more vile when he was a member than it is today.