This week the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, will hold its four day conference at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. But the group isn't without those who oppose their agenda and plan to protest the meeting.
ALEC members and supporters from across the country will gather in Salt Lake to share conservative policy ideas. But many groups who oppose ALEC’s agenda see the conference as opportunity to protest their agenda. Jen Gonnelly is the co-legislative director for the League of Women Voters of Utah and part of a larger protest group called the ALEC Welcome Committee.
“Our problem with ALEC, is that what ALEC does, they do without transparency behind closed doors,” she says.
Wayne Niederhauser is the Utah Senate chairman for ALEC. He says that if ALEC is being accused of not being transparent, similar conventions should receive the same criticism.
“I know that there’s been a lot of, at least, allegations that there’s no transparency with ALEC. It’s just not been my experience. And if you’re going to go down that road with ALEC, you got to go down that same road with CSG, you got to go down that same road NPSL,” he says.
Governor Gary Herbert is scheduled to be the opening speaker for the conference that will take place from July 25th to the 28th.