South DaCola

Why would SD legislative representatives Wick and Steele allow corporations to write legislation?

(H/T – Helga)
Just a few of the corporations that are helping Wick & Steele write legislation for our state.
Did Manny Steele and Hal Wick enjoy New Orleans soul food while at the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) annual meeting this past weekend? Enquiring minds would be interested to know if ALEC members Steele and Wick spent the weekend in New Orleans getting their marching orders from a long list of corporations. Corporations who write model legislation and then pass it on to legislators in all states to pass. ALEC drafts and promotes legislation that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, slashed medical care for the poor and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state. Big on their list is to close Planned Parenthood and remove the right of choice for women. This a full time job in SD for some legislators.
A state legislator pays only $50 a year to join ALEC. And corporate sponsors put up $5,000 to $50,000 — which gives legislators the privilege to write “model” laws that come from ALEC. ALEC is funded by a host of conservative corporations including the Koch brothers, Chevron, BP, Shell, Coors, Well Point, The Walton Family Foundation who work in secret to draw up bills that benefit specific business interests.
Steele and Wick have both held hunting events in SD for ALEC. Wick hosted an ALEC Pheasant Hunt fund attended by more than 20 SD state legislators along with out of state representatives that hunted and partied for 2 days at R & R Hunting in Seneca, SD.  Not to be outdone Steele had a 2009 ALEC Hunting party also.
Enquiring minds would also like to know if Larry Diedrich, Duane Sutton, Bill Peterson, Jay Duenwald, Mike Jaspers, Ken Juhnke, Mike Buckingham, Phyllis Heineman, Tom Hansen, Kermit Staggers, Tom Hacki or Dennis Daugaard to name just a few, went on an all paid trip to New Orleans this past weekend.
MORE UPDATES ABOUT ALEC:
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
http://motherjones.com/politics/2002/09/ghostwriting-law
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/05/288823/alec-exposed-corporations-funding/#more-288823
http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ledermanforhouse/sets/72157622836546498/
2009 ALEC Pheasant Hunt (Manny Steele, top row, 2nd from left)
http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/december07insidealec.pdf page 12
Hal Wick ALEC Pheasant Hunt
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