ALEC PROTEST IN SCOTTSDALE

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Phoenix police say they made a few arrests Wednesday morning of protesters gathered at a hotel to protest a meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council's States and Nation Summit.

Police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump says about a half a dozen people were arrested for obstructing government operations, criminal damage and assaulting an officer.

Police say a few people described as anarchists joined the occupied movement and crowds tried to push their way through the police line on to the Kierland resort property.

Police used pepper spray twice on aggressive groups, which police say was effective.

Various organizations ranging from labor to civil rights groups said they had planned to protest against the ALEC summit.

- FOX 10 NEWS PHOENIX

What Is ALEC?
Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations.

Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. 

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