Senator Mary Lazich's Disturbing Love Affair With ALEC

Who is Senator Mary Lazich? If you're like me and you live in Wisconsin's 28th Senate district, she is your state senator - like it or not.

Who is ALEC?

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a task force of more than 2,000 Republican legislators ( and 1 known Democrat) and 300 unelected corporate representatives and registered lobbyists that gather strictly for the purpose of writing model right-wing bills for legislators to take to back to their states to implement. We know this because ALEC was recently outed to the media by a member who was sick over the way they do " business".

Every legislator who joins ALEC is carefully screened and vetted before being allowed to join this powerful conservative "think tank". Corporations assign unelected representatives to sit on ALEC task forces to help VOTE on the "model" bills and resolutions, and sit as equals with legislators voting on the ALEC task forces and various working groups.

Lazich's relationship with ALEC: She is a card-carrying, due-paying ALEC member whose infamous, irresponsible and intellectually dishonest "sex education" bill was an ALEC product. Also, Her ALEC dues were paid for with taxpayer $.

Restoring local control to instruction in human growth and development (LRB-2088) Sponsored by Senator Mary Lazich (and ALEC)

This bill reversed the comprehensive sexual education bill that passed here in WI during the Doyle administration. Lazich's first draft of the bill mandated the teaching of abstinence-only sexual education in our state despite the fact that only 15 percent of Americans say they want abstinence-only sex education in the schools. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1622610

The most controversial topics addressed in the "old" comprehensive approach to sex education — "that teens can obtain birth control pills from family planning clinics and doctors without permission from a parent" — was found to be inappropriate by 28 percent of the public, but even there, seven out of 10 (71 percent) thought it was appropriate. The other most controversial topics were oral sex (27 percent found it inappropriate) and homosexuality (25 percent).

Mary Lazich's new bill forgoes the requirement to teach puberty, pregnancy, parenting, body image, and gender stereotypes, the health benefits, side effects, and proper use of contraceptives and barrier methods approved by the FDA - in essence, white-washing real sex education and replacing it with a glorified home economics class straight out of 1951. See my old blog:

I know for a fact that the idea for this controversial and regressive sex-less sex education bill did not come from students, parents, teachers, school board members or Superintendents, but rather from ALEC itself - because I asked questions of Senator Lazich, the school board and Superintendent - and dug around.

As the bill was being debated in Wisconsin I asked a series of questions to our Superintendent of Greendale Public Schools, Dr. William Hughes, who did not take any sides in the matter, but answered some frank questions truthfully.

Have any parents or administrators come to you with concerns or complaints about comprehensive sex ed?  "Have not heard anything and have been in the schools and in gatherings with parents quite a bit these few weeks."

What is our current policy on teaching sex ed in the middle and high school levels?   "There is a comprehensive program - with a parent opt out that is almost never done by parents.  The program was reviewed by district staff when the the law was passed a year or two ago as part of Gov Doyle's agenda.  The Greendale Human Growth and Development program  included the components that the legislature mandated  then.  The curriculum was revised some years back and included parent discussion to have a program that reflected our parent's values rather than a state mandate."

Who teaches these classes or lessons?  "PE and Health Teachers @ GMS and GHS."

Has either Senator Mary Lazich or Assembly member Jeff Stone contacted you in regards to these bills? If so, what input did you provide? "Have not had any inquiries."

And the proof that ALEC helped write this sex-less sex-ed legislation: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/11/1044266/-ALEC-On-Corrupted-Sexuality ~ It's a long story, but it does mention the word "sex" a lot and tells how ALEC believes that ANY Law from 1950 to present that even mentions "The Kinsey Report" as supporting documentation or had anyone who testified about the law that mentioned the Kinsey report has got to go, per ALEC.

ALEC released this statement: "Alfred Kinsey was a moral revolutionary in scientist’s clothing. The science was bad, even bogus; the man himself may now be forgotten; but the revolution came to stay, with a vengeance. Kinsey’s message—fornicate early, fornicate often, fornicate in every possible way—became the mantra of a sex-ridden age, our age, now desperate for a reformation of its own."

So what would go away because of its purported connection to Kinsey, according to ALEC and Mary Lazich and Jeff Stone?

SIECUS
Since 1964, the Sex Education and Information Council of the United States (SIECUS) has provided sex education materials to public schools.   …   SIECUS is dependent upon Indiana University’s Kinsey Reports, including the “scientific” tables documenting the Kinsey protocol.

AASECT
Just as SIECUS was founded to promote Kinseyan sex education to school children in 1964, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) was created in 1967 to train and accredit educators, health personnel and other “helping” professionals in the area of human sexuality based on the Kinsey “findings.”

. . . in other words, professionals who know what the hell they are talking about should just "Go Away" and let kids find out about actual sex, well, the hard way - no puns intended.

Besides our very own Senator Mary Lazich, some of these more (in)famous conservatives are alumni of ALEC:

• George H.W. Bush
• Michelle Bachman
• Charles Koch
• David Koch (yup, the prank phone call billionaire guy)
• Tommy Thompson
• Congressman Mark Foley (intern sex scandal)
• former House Speaker Tom DeLay
• Donald Rumsfeld
• Governor Scott Walker
• The Fitzgerald Bros.

(Find anybody on that list you despise? If you are liberal-minded, you probably can't find a single person on that list who does not make you cringe.)

Tommy Thompson is an alumni of ALEC and was quoted as saying, " Myself, I always loved going to these meetings because I always found new ideas. Then I'd take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that 'It's mine." And now this man is running for Senate - and to represent whom?

You may say "So what if my representative meets with business leaders and other reps to brainstorm about legislation." The problem is that nobody from the left, or even the center has a seat at the table during these ALEC meetings. "Representatives" who attend ALEC only hear from one side (the far right) when it comes to insight about future legislation.

I personally find it disturbing that many of our law-makers here in Wisconsin are current members of this organization and take the time to meet with the most elite of the upper class to create laws that rule the middle class. Where are the union reps at these meetings? Where are the actual laborers? Where are the moms? Where are the students, the poor, the elderly? They are all left out of a decision-making process that only goes to diminish the standard of living for millions of middle-class Americans so that big corporations can profit more from the laws they help to create.

ALEC helped to write these other WI Bills:

Wisconsin Omnibus Tort Act: TORT REFORM bills make it harder for Americans to sue companies whose products or services result in injury or death. Wisconsin Act 2 was the first bill Walker signed into law on January 27, 2011.

Voter Photo Identification Legislation: Wisconsin passed a "Voter ID" law introduced by Greendale Republican Rep. Jeff Stone and Sen. Joe Leibham. Stone is an ALEC member who received ALEC travel reimbursements in 2009. The legislation allows a narrow list of IDs for voting, including drivers licenses and state-issued ID cards. According to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study, about 177,000 Wisconsinites aged 65 and older do not have state-issued IDs. Statewide, only 45 percent of African American males and 51 percent of females have a valid drivers license - but that's the point isn't it?!!!

Charter School Reform Bill (AB 51-SB2): This bill introduced by Republican Rep. Robin Vos eliminates the limit on the number of pupils who may attend virtual charter schools, and weakens teacher licensure requirements. The proposal draws from a number of ALEC bills. The ALEC "Charter Schools Act" and "Next Generation Charter Schools" include the idea of an authorizing board, which makes it easier to establish charter schools over the objections of public school districts and other school officials.

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 WI Legislators with ALEC reimbursements on their Statements of Economic Interests 2011 Senate (mostly consists of writing off travel expenses to go to out-of-state ALEC functions - at our expense, of course).

Sen. Scott Fitgerald – (R) ALEC: $1,529.93

2011 Assembly

Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald – (R) ALEC: $1,329

Rep. Dan Knodl – (R) ALEC: $2,000

Rep. Patricia Strachota – (R) ALEC: $1,404

Rep. Robin Vos – ALEC: $? (R) (No specific amount)

2010 Senate

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald – (R) ALEC: $1,466.93

2010 Assembly

Rep. Scott Suder – (R) ALEC: $1,200 and Heartland Institute: $1,400

Rep. Michael Huebsch – (R) ALEC: $2,000

2009 Assembly

Rep. Kitty Rhoades – (R) ALEC: $575

Rep. Jeffery Stone – (R) ALEC: $1,200 (our very own Jeff Stone from Greendale- when the hell was the last time he asked to hear from anyone around here? Wouldn't it be free to hold a listening session downtown?)

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10880/alec-bills-wisconsin

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F