by PETER HOGNESS and JAKE BLUMGART
[UPDATE: On April 12, Reed Elsevier announced that it had resigned from ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. It joined a growing list of corporations that are quitting ALEC in response to increased public scrutiny.]
What do prestigious scientific journals like Cell and The Lancet have to do with union-busting, cutting corporate taxes, or denial of global warming?
The publishing company that owns these journals, Reed Elsevier, has supported all of these goals through its contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is a corporate-funded, politically conservative “bill mill,” which develops legislative templates for state-level laws that serve its political goals. The group holds networking conferences for politically sympathetic state legislators – such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, when he was a State Assembly member – where ideas are shared and its model bills are circulated (see “How ALEC Operates“).
Reed Elsevier is a leading member of ALEC – and also the parent company of Elsevier, one of the largest academic publishing companies in the world. It owns about 2,000 academic journals, primarily scientific and medical, and a diverse array of other information-related businesses, including LexisNexis.
ALEC has more than 250 corporate members (the exact number is uncertain, as the organization refuses to release a full list), but Reed Elsevier is one of just 23 that sit on ALEC’s national Private Enterprise Board. Reed-Elsevier lobbyist Teresa Jennings represents the company on this board, serving alongside better-known corporations such as Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil.
PSC CUNY for more
(Thanks to Harsh Kapoor of SACW)