Wisconsin Recall Targets Have Strong Ties to ALEC

Working America:

On June 5th, voters in Wisconsin will go to the polls in an historic recall election, where they will decide who will serve as Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and State Senator in several districts for the rest of the current term. Nearly all the elected officials targeted by recall, who are in danger of being removed from office on the June 5th ballot, have something else in common: past or present affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

At the center of the firestorm is Governor Scott Walker, who earned the ire of Wisconsin voters for his relentless drive to restrict collective bargaining rights for 350,000 state workers, as well as his negligence toward Wisconsin's job crisis. But before he became a household name, Walker served in the State Assembly from 1993-2002, where he was an ALEC member from 1995-1998.

During that time, Walker worked with fellow ALEC politician Governor Tommy Thompson to pass a model "Truth in Sentencing Bill," which was developed by ALEC's now-shuttered Public Safety and Elections Task Force. The bill required all criminal defendants to serve "no less than 85 percent" of the sentence imposed. For those convicted of violent crime, the bill called for them to serve 100 percent of the sentence imposed by the court; no parole, and no chance for early release.

This bill was developed specifically to benefit an ALEC member corporation, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which for many years housed overflow Wisconsin inmates in other states. CCA was on ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force at the time.