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John Oliver: The Real Shadow Government Is in the State Legislatures, Where ALEC Calls the Shots

ALEC writes the laws, the lawmakers just have to plug in the name of their state.

Leslie Savan

November 3, 2014

John Oliver has gotten a well-deserved rep lately for doing investigative comedy on Last Week Tonight, and this weekend he made an excellent point about state legislatures and ALEC, the Koch-supported legislation mill. While we’re all focused on how control of the US Senate could be determined by the midterm elections tomorrow, we ought to remember that the gridlocked Congress has passed a mere 185 bills so far this session. But the state legislatures, which are staffed by folks Oliver believes are downright weird (and he had the tapes to prove it), passed a whopping 24,000 laws in the same period.

And many of those bills are written by ALEC. Like, literally. Oliver shows a clip of a Democratic legislator pointing out on the floor that a bill submitted for passage seemed to be printed off the conservative group’s website, down to the type font and even the little ALEC logo in the text.

And all this goes on under what little radar is left in local media markets. Watch Oliver try to make up for that.

 

Leslie SavanLeslie Savan, author of Slam Dunks and No-Brainers and The Sponsored Life, writes for The Nation about media and politics.


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