Minor: ALEC flexing muscles in Mississippi
Little to nothing has been said lately about the legislative influence of the right-wing, Koch brothers-controlled lobby group known as ALEC.
But with Republicans firmly in charge at the Capitol you can bet ALEC is making itself felt on what comes out of Mississippi's lawmaking body.
In case you've forgotten, ALEC is the acronym for American Legislative Exchange Council, a high-sounding lobby outfit controlled by the Kansas-based Koch brothers, the multibillionaire industrialists who make a habit of entertaining state lawmakers in exotic places and sending them home with a packet of "model" bills. This column several years ago showed how ALEC helped get the charter school movement moving in Mississippi and influenced other legislation that hurt public education funding.
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According to a University of Chicago study, ALEC has put its mark on more legislation in Mississippi than any place in the past few years. The Koch-controlled lobby, which operates like a shadow legislature, has specialized in several causes here — charter schools among them.
Republican Sen. Josh Harkins of Flowood told the Jackson Free Press he had been elected ALEC's state chairman after recently attending one of the lobby's noted mock legislative sessions. Harkins admitted Mississippi has become a "fertile ground" for ALEC since GOP lawmakers gained a super majority in the Legislature.
House Speaker Phillip Gunn along with Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Gov. Phil Bryant recently announced they were forming joint legislative committees to propose "reform" in the state budgetary and spending process. The loud horse laugh heard around the legislative chambers echoed decades of failed tax reforms that were proposed with great sincerity and then died a quiet death.
GEOFF PENDER: How we gonna run ree-form when we're the d--n incumbent?
The Gunn-Reeves-Bryant one has a special brand of mockery since this has been the brain trust calling Mississippi's legislative tune the past four or five years. Since this grand plan has to do with rewriting the state tax structure, it carries a distinct smell of Koch and ALEC. It's safe to say the Republican "reform" won't include removing the tax imbalance that now is heavily tilted in favor of more affluent taxpayers.
Some suggest Democrats don't have room to mock the GOP brain trusters because they didn't do tax reform when they were in charge. There's little likelihood GOPers will do anything substantive about lowering the state's abominably high sales tax on groceries (bread and milk and the like — staples of the poorest of the poor). Mississippi's 7 percent sales tax on groceries is believed to be the nation's highest since many states either exempt groceries or have a lower rate.
A classic effort to cut the grocery sales tax was made by legislative Democrats in 1995. Backers of Dick Molpus, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee that year, mounted a strong run in the House but failed to muster a necessary three-fifths vote when backers of Republican Kirk Fordice lined up to block it. Molpus, who eventually lost to Fordice, had contended that a number of states with a sales tax, eliminate the tax on groceries or have a lower rate. Significantly no grocery tax cut move has been made since.
Common Cause, the longstanding nonprofit citizens lobby, three years ago filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Internal Revenue Service seeking to lift the lobbying group's tax exemption as a nonprofit educational group. Although the IRS has not acted on the complaint, at least a number of big corporations have withdrawn their support of ALEC.
Bill Minor is a contributing columnist. Contact him at P.O. Box 1243, Jackson MS 39215.