Reason #35: Corporate Law Making

All too often, lobbyists will actually “help” lawmakers pen pieces of legislation or even hand them readymade, already-written bills to bring to a vote. Think I’m exaggerating? Think again. Huge portions of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit were actually written or revised by pharmaceutical company lobbyists.

A 2002 expose in Mother Jones Magazine profiled a group called the “American Legislative Exchange Council,” which has been handing out these kinds of off-the-rack laws for years. Funded by major corporations like Philip Morris and big industry trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying council flies thousands of state legislators to an annual conference every year. While there, the lawmakers attend seminars on topics like lessening government’s regulatory power. And when they leave, lobbyists hand them pieces of legislation to introduce when they return to their state capitals.

In 2000, the American Legislative Exchange Council passed out over 3000 of these insta-bills. At least 450 of them were eventually passed into law. Some examples of lobbyist-written statutes that are now in effect in numerous states include a law that lets corporate polluters off the hook and a law that keeps potential parolees in prison longer (one of the council’s members is the nation’s largest private prison companies). The group has also drafted bills to deregulate utilities and kill minimum wage laws.

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