State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation

Alex Hertel-Fernandez

Provides the first in-depth and accessible history of the rise of cross-state conservative lobbying groups, including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the State Policy Network, and Americans for Prosperity, documenting both their victories and importantly, their missteps, over time
Draws on archival evidence, interviews, and original data collection to document why liberals have struggled to build cross-state organizing clout compared to conservatives
Spells out the specific policy consequences of conservative cross-state organizing, including its effects on labor market standards, unions, and the Affordable Care Act
Sheds new light on the relationship between politicians, activists, donors, and businesses, as well as how businesses shape state policy

State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation

Alex Hertel-Fernandez

Description

Most Americans pay little attention to the massive number of elections that occur at the state level every year. Yet cumulatively, a party's success in state-level races across the country can produce major shifts in policymaking and governance. That is precisely what has happened in the US since 2010. In a wave election that year, the Republican Party began their ascendancy in state-level elections, and by 2016 had solidified their dominance. The party now fully controls 25 state legislatures and governorships-one of the largest advantages either party has had since the New Deal.

After the GOP wave, a broad swathe of states began considering and enacting a near-identical set of conservative priorities-often even using the exact same text. Where did this flood of new legislation come from? How did so many states arrive at the same proposals at precisely the same time? As Alexander Hertel-Fernandez shows in the eye-opening State Capture, the answer can be found in a trio of powerful interest groups: the Koch Brothers-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network (SPN). Drawing from an impressive evidence base, Hertel-Fernandez explains how, since the 1970s, conservative activists, wealthy donors, and big businesses constructed a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying groups.

But it is about more than this. It also teases out how conservative-corporate mobilization has fostered epochal shifts in the American political economy: the decline of unions, party polarization, and the skyrocketing concentration of wealth. State Capture will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary American politics.

State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation

Alex Hertel-Fernandez

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

PART I: The Evolution of ALEC: A Corporate-Conservative Anchor Across the States

Chapter 1: "The Most Dangerously Effective Organization": A Smart ALEC is Born

Chapter 2: Policy Plagiarism: A Window into ALEC's Reach Across the U.S. States

Chapter 3: An Easy A with ALEC: ALEC's Appeal for State Legislators

Chapter 4: "A Great Investment": ALEC's Appeal for Big Business

· PART II: The Right-Wing Troika and its Foes

Chapter 5: A Little Help from Their Friends: Introducing the Right-Wing Troika

Chapter 6: Transforming the Nation One State at a Time: The Right-Wing Troika and State Policy

Chapter 7: "Feisty Chihuahuas Versus a Big Gorilla": Why Left-Wing Efforts to Counter the Troika Have Floundered

Conclusion: State Capture and American Democracy

Technical Appendix

Works Cited

State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation

Alex Hertel-Fernandez

Author Information

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is an Assistant Professor in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. His research has appeared in the American Prospect, Democracy Journal, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post, as well as numerous scholarly journals. He is also the author of Politics at Work (Oxford, 2018).

State Capture

How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation

Alex Hertel-Fernandez

Reviews and Awards

"In his systematic and impeccably researched work, Hertel-Fernandez discusses why liberal efforts to counter the troika have floundered and why this infiltration of right-wing state policy endangers the quality of American democracy. A highly specific, important study in understanding why attention to state legislatures and local elections across the country is increasingly crucial."- Kirkus

"Coming at a time of deep political crisis and polarization, State Capture is a wake-up call for anyone who has wondered how Democrats lost control of so many state legislatures. Through detailed research that spans decades, Hertel-Fernandez paints an alarming picture of how far-right donors captured our country's policy making. He also provides a blueprint for how to take back government so it truly represents the stated desires of American citizens."- Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics

"State Capture is revelatory in two ways. It uncovers, in riveting and rigorous detail, how conservative business groups and wealthy activists have reshaped American public policy one state at a time. It also reveals a new frontier in the engaged study of our federated democracy- one that has found a worthy intellectual pioneer in Alex Hertel-Fernandez."- Jacob S. Hacker, Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and author of The Great Risk Shift

"In this outstanding book, Alex Hertel-Fernandez systematically documents how the states, once celebrated as a diverse set of locally-grounded 'labratories of democracy,' are increasingly subject to capture by powerful and well coordinated national interest groups. The message of State Capture is compelling and troubling: more and more, major policy choices in states where Republicans gain power reflect the activites of narrow interests able to deploy political resources on a national scale rather than the concerns and preferences of local voters."- Paul Pierson, John Gross Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley, and co-author of Winner-Take-All Politics and American Amnesia