Va. petition demands lawmakers cut ties with anti-healthcare-reform group

The liberal group Progress VA launched a petition Wednesday that seeks to pressure Virginia state lawmakers into severing ties with an industry-funded association that wrote the state's challenge to President Obama's healthcare reform law.

Progress VA says the state has spent $232,000 over the past decade so lawmakers can attend meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an association of conservative lawmakers that writes pro-business legislation that state legislators can then introduce as their own. 

ALEC drafted Virginia's ban on requiring people to have health insurance, a measure that has been adopted by 14 states so far. The "Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act" is on the ballot in Montana, Wyoming, Alabama and Florida next year.

"ALEC, a secretive organization funded by big business, has been writing bills that legislators are passing off as their own work," the petition states. "ALEC's priority is the corporate bottom line, not people like me. You were elected to represent me and my family, not big business lobbyists. I expect you to prioritize my family over corporations."

ALEC says it is a nonpartisan legislative group that aims to promote "free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty" through private-public partnerships.

---