Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny

When asked if he paid his own way to the ALEC conference, Adams acknowledges he accepted money from the group to help pay for the trip. ALEC calls this a "scholarship."

Many ALEC members receive these scholarships. But it's not clear who's really paying.

Michael Bowman initially said state Sen. Pearce, who also accepted a scholarship, would know who paid for his trip. But the Arizona lawmaker said ALEC paid for it. Later, Bowman said Bob Burns, another Arizona state Senator, would know. Burns was in charge of pooling money for the scholarships. He did not respond to NPR's repeated requests asking where the money came from.

In an office at the Arizona statehouse, a review of records show that not one Arizona legislator who went to the conference reported receiving any gifts of meals, parties, golf outings or banquets tickets from a private corporation.

Pearce and a dozen others wrote that they received a gift of $500 or more from ALEC.

A review of the two dozen states now considering Arizona's immigration law shows many of those pushing similar legislation across the country are ALEC members.

In fact, five of those legislators were in the hotel conference room with the Corrections Corporation of America the day the model bill was written.

The prison company didn't have to file a lobbying report or disclose any gifts to legislators. They don't even have to tell anyone they were there. All they have to do is pay their ALEC dues and show up.

Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.

Since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law in April, five state legislators have introduced eight bills similar to it. Like SB 1070, four of them were also named "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act." Lawmakers in many more states NPR interviewed have said they would introduce or support a similar bill.

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

As we reported, Arizona Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce was the originator of the draft legislation that later became the immigration law known as Arizona SB 1070. Although Corrections Corporation of America did have a representative at the American Legislative Exchange Council meeting where model legislation similar to 1070 was drafted, we didn't mean to suggest that CCA wrote the language.