Next week, at least 12 Virginia legislators will head to Salt Lake City, Utah to meet with corporate lobbyists behind closed doors at the 39th Annual American Legislative Exchange Council conference. If that name sounds familiar, it's probably because ALEC has been in the news recently as 26 corporations, 4 nonprofits, and 55 state legislators have fled the organization as their extreme and controversial agenda has been exposed.
You may remember from our January report that Commonwealth taxpayers have already spent over $230,000 on sending our representatives off to these conferences. Those numbers are about to tick upwards as most of those 12 legislators will again be traveling on the taxpayer dime. While they're in Salt Lake City, those Delegates and Senators will be meeting with lobbyists to find more corporate-sponsored bills in ALEC's arsenal to bring home and add to the 50+ ALEC bills that have been introduced in Virginia.
