What do gun laws, abortion, bathroom bills and soda taxes have in common? Copy-paste legislation. A USA TODAY, azcentral and publici investigation found more than 10,000 bills written by corporations and special interest groups.
“This work proves what many people have suspected, which is just how much of the democratic process has been outsourced to special interests,” said Lisa Graves, co-director of Documented, which probes corporate manipulation of public policy. “It is both astonishing and disappointing to see how widespread ... it is. Good lord, it’s an amazing thing to see.”
Not all model legislation is driven by special interests or designed to make someone money. Some bills were written to require sex offenders to register with law enforcement, while others have made it easier for members of the military to vote or increased penalties for human trafficking. “This is how all laws are written,” she said. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a law where a legislator sits in a chamber until a light bulb goes off with a new policy.”Bills promise to protect the public.The Asbestos Transparency Act sounds like the kind of boring, good-government policy voters expect their representatives to hammer out on their behalf to safeguard public health.
Bob Winokur, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and served as mayor of Fort Collins, Colorado, never pinpointed where he came in contact with asbestos. And he never filed a claim to help pay his medical bills. The disease progressed too rapidly to allow it, even without the additional requirements proposed by the model bill, Chris Winokur said.
One of those experts was Mark Behrens, who logs thousands of miles a year testifying before lawmakers about ALEC's model asbestos legislation. He has done so in at least 13 states, where he was billed as an objective authority. Sonnenberg told USA TODAY he didn’t know Behrens worked for the Chamber of Commerce when he called him to testify. “I just knew they were experts and they indeed understood the legal issues and process much better than I,” he wrote in an email.
Colorado lawmakers rejected the Asbestos Transparency Act in 2017 and 2018, and Sonnenberg said he doesn't plan to introduce it this year. "No citizens are saying, 'Hey, can you make it harder to sue if ... low-paid orderlies happened to kill or injure my parents,' " Graves said. "That's not a thing citizens are clamoring for. But you know who is? The nursing home industry, and big business in general."
Pennsylvania State Rep. Thomas Murt has sponsored more bills copied from model legislation than any other state lawmaker in the nation, according to USA TODAY's database.Pennsylvania House members solicit co-sponsors by circulating short memos summarizing a bill without including its actual language or who wrote it.
Murt said he would reconsider his support for two of the bills that were copied from ALEC, after learning more about their impact. One was a call for a constitutional convention to curb federal spending, backed by the controversial Koch brothers conservative political network. The other was a bill protecting Crown Cork & Seal from asbestos liability.
It’s not just legislators circulating copycat bills. In Pennsylvania, the nonpartisan service that drafts all bills for the state Assembly – the Legislative Reference Bureau – frequently copies directly from model legislation, said director Vincent DeLiberato. But the legislator ultimately decides whether to use it, he said.
USA TODAY’s algorithm found the same model was introduced in 13 states, becoming law in Arizona and North Carolina. A similar version passed in Colorado. This arrangement is particularly appealing to new lawmakers, said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, an assistant professor at Columbia University who has studied the influence of ALEC and other conservative groups. His research showed less-experienced lawmakers are more likely to use copycat legislation.
“What ALEC does is more than provide the model bills: They provide relationships. They approach you when you are first elected and build these enduring social connections with you at recurring events that happen every year,” he said. “You really need that social connection in addition to the model-bill resources that you’re getting, the research help.”Bills sound like they’re protecting people from a problem.“Countless American lives will be saved. ...
Right to Try illustrates another finding of USA TODAY’s investigation: Some copycat bills amount to little more than marketing and posturing, with organizations behind them highlighting a perceived problem and then offering a solution with little or no measurable impact. Alison Bateman-House, an assistant professor of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Health, said Right to Try is “an effort to address a problem that did not actually exist.” Patients have been able to access experimental drugs since the 1970s, she said. compassionate-use program, about 1,000 patients a year have gained access to non-approved drugs in recent years. The FDA approves more than 90 percent of those requests, often within days and, in emergencies, sometimes more quickly.
Riches said Goldwater crafts legislation it sees a need for in Arizona, where it's based. It then considers the “exportability” of its model legislation to other states, he said. “They wouldn’t be doing it if they weren’t making a buck,” said Robert McCaw, government relations director for CAIR.Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski, who co-sponsored similar legislation in 2016, said some people fear Sharia law will be applied in the U.S., but he does not.
“The use of these model bills is not the end of the world,” he said, noting that immigrants are more successful when they learn English. “The idea that one organization or group is somehow controlling legislation or legislators or states, that’s a fallacy.” Special interests get lawmakers to do the opposite.Susan Edwards supported a school voucher bill that would help her two children on the autism spectrum.
Edwards said she realized in retrospect that students with disabilities were used as a Trojan horse to put on the legislative agenda a fringe idea that was part of a much bigger campaign. In the years that followed, 19 other states debated 93 nearly identical proposals based on model legislation. They became law in Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee.
The groups behind Arizona’s move toward universal vouchers, however, were shown in indisputable terms that the public opposed their ideas.It was only the most recent example of model legislation that didn’t reflect the will of voters, USA TODAY/Arizona Republic found.
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