Slavery still exists in America and prisons are the plantations. Many mainstream American institutions are ensuring that it stays this way.

One of the most influential organizations which connects state legislators with corporate money and corporate think tanks to influence pro-corporate, anti-union state legislation is the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council, often known as ALEC.

Funded by some of the largest corporations based in the United States, ALEC takes the policy ideas of corporate-friendly think tanks, turns them into hundreds of “model legislation” bills undermining unions, blocking environmental protections, opposing health care reform, and supporting the tobacco and private prison industries.

And yet, they are operating under the radar of State Lobbying rules.