| June 7, 2012 Contact: David Ward, david@keystoneprogress.org, Report finds corporate lobbyists are working with elected officials to deny Pennsylvanians justiceHARRISBURG, PA -- A new report by Keystone Progress has found that American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is public enemy number one when it comes to ensuring justice in Pennsylvania. By relying on several investigations by groups such as Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy and ALEC's own official reports, Keystone Progress has found that ALEC, its special interests lobbyists and elected official members want to strip away our civil justice rights."This new report digs deeper into ALEC and investigates the dangerous work its members are doing to undermine our courts" Keystone Progress Executive Director Michael Morrill said. "Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda L. Kelly and other Pennsylvania lawmakers need to take note and investigate the nefarious work this organization is accomplishing in Pennsylvania." The new report, Justice Denied, finds that ALEC has created a stealth legislature in Pennsylvania, bringing together corporate lobbyists and elected state legislators who meet behind closed doors to initiate corporate-friendly bills to introduce, sometimes verbatim, into our General Assembly. A few other highlights of the report's findings includes:
Justice Denied in Pennsylvania and Keystone Progress' original report Behind Closed Doors can both be found on the website Scribd at www.scribd.com/ALECfiles. This is the second report on courts in Pennsylvania that Taking Back Our Courts has issued in the last two months. Taking Back Our Courts previously issued Justice for Philadelphia Courts in April 2012. That report can be found on Taking Back Our Courts' website, www.takingbackourcourts.org.1 http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010807lobbyistsreg2p2.asp 2 http://articles.philly.com/2012-05-25/news/31851370_1_bus-accident-liability-limit-state-cap 3 http://www.philadelphiabar.org/page/BoardResolution10105210312003?appNum=1 4 www.scribd.com/ALECfiles |
