× Expand David Michael Miller

State Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) is no fan of the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC. The conservative group pitches “model” legislation, often drafted with the help of corporations, to state legislators with the aim of furthering a conservative, pro-corporate agenda.

But since she was elected to the Legislature in 2011, Taylor has been attending ALEC’s conferences as a kind of spy to see what the group is working on. (It’s a tradition that her predecessor, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, started while he served in the Legislature.)

Taylor pays upwards of $2,000 to attend the conferences, where every year she’s bombarded with ideas and arguments she finds absurd or terrible. Nevertheless, she holds her tongue.

“I don’t do a whole lot at these ALEC conferences except sit there and try not to shout something out because some of it is so ridiculous,” she says. “I’m quiet, respectful and just sit there.”

Until this year. One of the speakers at the August conference in New Orleans was David Horowitz, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled “a driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black movements.”

According to Taylor, in two different talks at the conference, Horowitz argued that school curriculum is now being controlled by “terrorist groups” like the Muslim Brotherhood and Black Lives Matter, and that the left hates the Constitution.

The breaking point for Taylor came when Horowitz called Rosie O’Donnell “a big fat pig.”

“I could not just sit there because then I feel like I’m being complicit if I didn’t say something,” Taylor says. “I said It’s not okay to call women a ‘big fat pig,’ and he said, ‘Well, she is a big fat pig.’”

She also challenged some of his arguments about slavery.

Taylor says her challenge didn’t get much response from the crowd, other than “two young women in the back clapped for me.”

It was an uncomfortable moment. Taylor went on to call out Horowitz and ALEC in a column for the Center for Media and Democracy.

And that’s when things got weirder. Horowitz’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to Taylor, demanding an apology and threatening to sue her.

“Without critical examination, Rep. Taylor’s article refers to and blindly adopts the Southern Poverty Law Center’s defamatory labeling of Mr. Horowitz as a ‘dangerous hatemonger’ and as ‘anti-Islamic,’” the letter states. “There is not a shred of truth to these false accusations.”

Taylor hired attorney Lester Pines to defend her against the threat. In an Aug. 31 letter, Pines wrote: “Were your client to bring a suit for defamation against Rep. Taylor or [the Center for Media and Democracy], it would be dismissed as frivolous and they would seek attorneys’ fees and expenses, and other sanctions.”

Horowitz has yet to follow through on his threat, says Taylor. And Taylor’s article helped amp up pressure on ALEC, with several groups calling for a boycott of the group. Verizon heeded the boycott call, with a spokesperson saying “Our company has no tolerance for racist, white supremacist or sexist comment or ideals.”

Taylor says Horowitz illustrates the tough spot that ALEC now finds itself in during the reign of Trump. The group wants to push a pro-business agenda but would rather avoid the taint of Trump’s divisive, caustic rhetoric.

“They’re struggling in the age of Trump in that they don’t want to be associated with his hate mongering,” she says. “Yet they need Trump to accomplish their corporate agenda.”