Michigan didn’t get an “F” for voter fraud. No, Lansing politicians got an “F” from the State Integrity Project for risk of corruption and lack of transparency, a grade that put our state at 43rd. What was ALEC member and Chair of the House Redistricting and Elections Committee Rep. Pete Lund’s response to that?
He said that voters don’t care about ethical politicians as much as they care about job creation.
But Rep. Lund’s committee isn’t talking about jobs – or about reforming Michigan’s broken campaign finance system. They’re talking about a package of bills that would impose a series of new burdensome and unnecessary regulations on voting rights. Stand up with thousands of Michiganders calling on Pete Lund and all other Lansing politicians to immediately withdraw from the corporate bill factory ALEC and reject these bills.
Paul Weyrich, founding member of ALEC, said in 1980, “I don’t want everybody to vote. …As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” ALEC and its sponsors have a longstanding mission to pass laws that make it harder for Americans to vote, impose barriers to the popular referendum process and let big money flow more freely to campaigns.
This week, no longer able to defend themselves on voter suppression legislation they spread around the country, ALEC announced they would eliminate their Public Safety and Elections task force. But the risk from Lansing politicians is still very real. Join Progress Michigan and thousands of Michiganders in calling on Pete Lund and his buddies in Lansing to drop their ALEC membership immediately – and drop these controversial bills that do nothing to address the real problems our state faces.