CRITICAL MASS (all activist groups) WILL CONVERGE AT THE HOTEL AT 4:30PM on JULY 22. MANY OTHER EVENTS ARE PLANNED BUT PLEASE TRY TO ADD YOUR PRESENCE TO THE MAIN EVENT!

Activists will converge from around the nation to the Stop ALEC Fest 2015 in San Diego, July 22, 2015 at Grand Hyatt Hotel (Harbor at Kettner).

Activists will converge from around the nation to the Stop ALEC Fest 2015 in San Diego, July 22, 2015 at Grand Hyatt Hotel (Harbor at Kettner).

CRITICAL MASS (all activist groups) WILL CONVERGE AT THE HOTEL AT 4:30PM on JULY 22. MANY OTHER EVENTS ARE PLANNED BUT PLEASE TRY TO ADD YOUR PRESENCE TO THE MAIN EVENT!

TENTATIVE:

7/21 (Day before the event)

~8:30pm Press Conference + Dynamic Visual Display TBA

7/22

3pm - (Union sponsored) Rally at Embarcadero Park North

4pm - March through SD to Hyatt

4:30 - March arrives at Hyatt <-- MAIN EVENT

5:00 - Rally at Hyatt starts (speakers and music)

~6pm - Balloon Launch (Tethered giant balloons with signs)

7/23

6 pm - PANEL DISCUSSION: "ALEC and Corporate Money in Politics"

WHERE: Hilton San Diego Airport/Harbor Island, 1960 Harbor Island Drive, San Diego, CA 92101

MODERATOR:

Jay Riestenberg, Research Analyst at Common Cause

PANELISTS*:

> Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy

> Diallo Brooks, Director of Outreach and Partner Engagement at People For the American Way

> Jane Carter, Labor Economist at AFSCME

> Brant Olson, Campaign Manager at Forecast The Facts

> Rey Lopez-Calderon, Executive Director of Common Cause Illinois

*Panelists subject to change

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Embarcadero Park North is just south of the Hyatt on Kettner and has restrooms. (Former statement that hot dogs will be available is no longer true).

MORE EVENTS ON SUBSEQUENT DAYS STILL BEING PLANNED!

Help this event happen in San Diego! SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE CORPORATE ELITE THAT HAVE THEIR WAY WITH OUR DEMOCRACY...

PLEASE JOIN THIS EVENT AND SHARE IT NATIONWIDE! CONVERGE ON SAN DIEGO THIS YEAR TO EXPOSE ALEC AND THEIR MALFEASANCE!

Through the secretive meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council, corporate lobbyists and state legislators vote as equals on ‘model bills’ to change our rights that often benefit the corporations’ bottom line at public expense. ALEC is a pay-to-play operation where corporations buy a seat and a vote on ‘task forces’ to advance their legislative wish lists and can get a tax break for donations, effectively passing these lobbying costs on to taxpayers.

Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations.

PRIMARY MESSAGE:

1. Out of State Politicians who are on vacation here with their millionaire and billionaire friends should be back home working to make the lives of their constituents better, not scheming with lobbyists how to make their lives harder.

2. But ALEC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate lobbyist money on this vacation for politicians and corporate lobbyists so they can come up with a new round of bills which will harm America’s families.

3. The result of this junket: dozens of bills will be written by ALEC and forced into law across the country with no input from the voters whose lives will be affected.

4. These bills are nothing more than a way for the rich and powerful to squeeze every last dime they can out of families like ours all across the nation.

5. We do things differently here in California and are a model for the nation, and it’s time we stand up to ALEC to let them know they are not welcome here.

Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills.

ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

Endorsing Organizations

United Against Police Terror - San Diego

Artful Activist San Diego

Af3irm San Diego

Socialist Alternative

All of Us or None, San Diego

Overpass Light Brigade - San Diego