The AFL-CIO, NAACP, the Brave New Foundation and several other groups are urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce the Voting Rights Act to stop the discriminatory voter suppression laws the right-wing billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have pushed and financed in dozens of states. The Koch Brothers are major funders of ALEC.

Even as working Ohioans are ready to vote “No” today on Issue 2, which would repeal S.B. 5, the bill signed by Gov. John Kasich that takes away the right of public employees to bargain for a middle-class life, the right wing has been hard at work. They are not only ginning up their own base, but using deception and voter-suppression legislation to game the outcome.

Right-wing dollars are showering Ohio’s airwaves and the coffers of anti-labor politicians as Election Day nears for a Nov. 8 referendum on Senate Bill 5/Issue 2. Voting “No” on Issue 2 will revoke S.B. 5, the anti-worker bill supported by Gov. John Kasich and passed by the state legislature earlier this year that effectively eliminates collective bargaining for public employees.

Across the country, voters in a number of states will face obstacles to casting ballots in the 2012 elections, in large part because of model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the organization backed by, among others, billionaires Charles and David Koch. It was ALEC’s draft legislation that inspired a spate of recently passed voter ID laws that, if allowed to stand, are expected to marginalize the impact of students and people of color at the polls in Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Kansas. (Under the Texas law, for example, a college ID is not an acceptable form of identification for voting, but a military ID is.)

Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff files this report on Maine working families’ action to protect voting rights.

Another grassroots effort to overturn the partisan political agenda of extreme politicians scored a major victory in Maine today.  The Coalition to Protect Maine Votes reported this morning that Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers verified more than enough signatures to allow Mainers to put a measure on the November ballot to overturn legislation that eliminates same-day voter registration.

This is a cross-post by Eric Carlson from PRWatch.

On Wednesday morning, a group of Americans from across the political spectrum, and the country, held a press conference in New Orleans to highlight the devastating impact of the “model” legislation voted on by corporations through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

This week in New Orleans, some 2,000 state legislators are being wined, dined and given their legislative battle plans by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to push a corporate agenda and undermine workers’ rights. The Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed ALEC generates model legislation for right-wing grassroots activists and funds their attacks on workers’ rights, public employees and more.

The spotlight’s been shining pretty bright this week on the right-wing Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examined new information out in recent days and reported that even though Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Republican lawmakers downplayed connections between ALEC’s agenda and their legislative efforts, “the similarities between some Wisconsin legislation and ALEC draft bills are striking.”

The right-wing Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) created the battle plans behind state level legislation in more than two dozen states to strip public employees of the right to bargain for a better life, cripple their unions and privatize public services, according to a new investigative report by Beau Hodai at In These Times.

It comes as no surprise that the right-wing, Koch brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) says the “best” of the nation’s states’ economies can be found in states where corporations are king and the middle class is an after-thought, if that, in state policies such as taxes, environmental laws and wages.