Maine Lawmaker's Taxpayer-Funded Trip to Conservative (ALEC) Conference Comes Under Scrutiny

[highplainsdem]

From the Maine Public Broadcasting Network (audio at the link):

http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/18085/Default.aspx

A decision by a Maine Republican House leader to bill the state for his travel expenses to a conservative convention has drawn fire from a self-described nonpartisan government advocacy group. Hampden Rep. Andre Cushing's trip has once again called into question the role that the American Legislative Exchange Council--or ALEC--plays in state policy making. But Republicans argue that ALEC is no different from any number of progressive organizations that develop model legislation for Democrats.

Only last week, Democrats and others who are supporting a people's veto campaign to reinstate Maine's same-day voter registration law charged that majority Republicans who repealed the law were taking their cues from the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC.

Now, a group known as Maine's Majority says Assistant House Majority Leader Andre Cushing shouldn't have had the state pay for the Hampden Republican's travel expenses last month when he attended an ALEC convention in New Orleans.

Chris Korzen is a spokesman for Maine's Majority, which he says has 11,000 followers. Korzen says ALEC attempts to advance corporate interests at the expense of workers, and that Maine taxpayers shouldn't have to pay Cushing's $2,100 travel bill to attend their national conference.

-snip-

For more background on just how despicable Cushing's behavior is, see reply 292 in the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which links to this separate DU topic about Arizona legislators planning to attend the same conference

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1099361

and which explains that ALEC was offering to reimburse its puppet legislators up to $1,900 for travel expenses and their hotel. ALEC calls these little inducements to attend "scholarships."

Apparently Cushing wasn't able to keep his expenses within that $1,900 limit, so he's sticking Maine's taxpayers with the bill instead.