A scheme to privatize Florida’s prisons failed (19-21) in the state Senate yesterday after a huge public outcry led by Florida working families, community and civil rights groups. The plan was backed by extremist Gov. Rick Scott (R), private prison companies and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the key players in the drive to privatize prisons throughout the nation.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

This afternoon, a crowd of 100 assembled on the lawn of the Arizona State Capitol to hold a press conference to oppose four anti-worker  bills under consideration by the state Senate. Representatives and supporters of  AFSCME, AFL-CIO, education and a public safety union demanded that Gov. Jan Brewer and Rebublican state legislators put hard-working Arizona families above corporate  interests. State Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Democrat and AFSCME member, kicked the event off with a rousing speech in support of unions and against special interests trying to cut the pay and benefits of teachers and emergency responders.

Mike Gillis, Ohio AFL-CIO communications director, sends us this.

A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Ohio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio state lawmakers.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona’s teachers and first responders are under full-frontal attack this week, as union-stripping bills that have been called “Wisconsin on steroids” are being shuttled through the legislative process at whirlwind speed. These bills would prohibit public-sector unions from negotiating pay and benefits, ban paycheck deductions for union dues and ban compensation for union activities. They passed through committee hearings last week and are going to be debated in the full Senate this week. It’s expected that they will pass through both chambers easily due to the anti-labor GOP majority in both. It’s unclear if Gov. Jan Brewer will sign them into law. A Phoenix-based right-wing pressure group, the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are behind the measures.

Not that we ever believed right-wing lawmakers in the first place. But the cover’s been blown on all who claim that the extremist bills they introduce—uncannily similar from state to state—are the works of their own fertile but twisted minds.

This is a cross-post by Dustin Beilke from PR Watch.

Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an island resort off the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams.  While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

A slate of bills introduced in the Arizona Legislature this session would wipe out public-sector unions in our state. If Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signs them into law, which is likely, they would ban collective bargaining by public employees, end automatic payroll deductions for dues and prohibit compensation for performing union duties. These measures go even further than the union-stripping bills that enraged Wisconsinites last year and, unlike in Wisconsin, Arizona police and fire unions would not be exempted.

Donna Gatehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona, as the pithy Jon Stewart put it a while back, is the “meth lab of democracy.” The Grand Canyon State has achieved international notoriety for legalizing guns in bars, SB1070 [anti-immigrant legislation], a Birther Bill, and of course, the antics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among other things.

Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legendary 1963 Washington, D.C, “I Have a Dream” speech. But what most don’t know, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said at the AFL-CIO’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference in Detroit, is that “the seeds of Dr. King’s dream were sown first,” in the Motor City.