ALEC Castle Doctrine

Tick Tock on Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Gun Law that Was Backed by ALEC, the NRA, Wal-Mart and Others

(Edited excerpt based on a timeline prepared by Lisa Graves and Nick Surgey on 3-23-12, shortly after the Trayvon Martin shooting)

• The Florida "Stand Your Ground" law became the template for "model" legislation endorsed and promoted nationally by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a non-profit entity funded by major corporations and interest groups including Koch Industries and the National Rifle Association (NRA). The bill expanded the long-standing right of self-defense by extending criminal and civil immunity to shooters who feel threatened by another, creating a statutory “right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force. . .”

• ALEC has recently an annual budget of approximately $7 million and claims that hundreds of its model bills become law each year. It hides its inner workings, including the fact that its model bills often are drafted and always are pre-approved by corporations and lobbyists. ALEC calls itself the nation’s largest group of state legislators, but 98% of its funding comes from corporations and sources other than dues from elected officials, as the Center for Media and Democracy has determined as part of its ALECexposed.org project.

• In August 2005, in Grapevine, Tex., NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer asked legislators and lobbyists at a closed-door meeting of ALEC’s "Criminal Justice Task Force" to adopt the Florida "Castle Doctrine" bill as an ALEC model bill. The NRA said her pitch "was well received," and the bill was approved "unanimously."

• At that time, ALEC’s public-private Criminal Justice Task Force was co-chaired by Wal-Mart -- the nation’s largest seller of guns and ammunition. ALEC’s staffer for the task force was Chris Oswald a former “State Liaison” for the NRA.

• Corporate representatives and state legislators on ALEC Task Forces have equal votes on proposed model legislation, so the Florida law was ratified by Wal-Mart and its 2005 public sector co-chair, Texas Rep. Ray Allen, along with other state legislators and corporate lobbyists. It was endorsed by a representative of the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation, according to minutes of the meeting prepared by ALEC.

• In September 2005, that bill was adopted by ALEC's National Board of Directors, which has a procedure to allow model bills to be approved if there is no objection. The public sector portion of the board was chaired by Georgia state Rep. Earl Ehrhart; the corporate board included Koch Industries, Altria (parent of Philip Morris), Coors, Bell South, and Verizon. (ALEC says its corporate board does not vote. Corporations and elected officials have an equal vote in the task forces, where model bills are adopted, however.)

• At the next ALEC Criminal Justice Task Force meeting, in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, in 2006, the NRA’s representative to ALEC, Tara Mica, reported on the “continued success” in securing passage of ALEC’s “Castle Doctrine” bill in other states.

• In 2007, an ALEC "Legislative Report Card" boasted that the ALEC/NRA Castle Doctrine bill had been introduced or passed in numerous states. ALEC also highlighted ALEC legislators who had introduced versions of the model bill, including Texas state Sen. Jeff Wentworth and Rep. Joe Driver.

• To date, more than two dozen states have adopted Castle Doctrine bills with ALEC/NRA DNA. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, an ALEC alum, signed into law an NRA-backed bill with some provisions similar to the ALEC bill in 2011. Similar bills are pending in other states.

• 

  NRA lobbyist, Marion Hammer, watches Jeb Bush sign Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law in 2005
  The Florida bill that became the ALEC model was signed on April 26, 2005 by Gov. Jeb Bush, with the NRA’s lobbyist, Marion Hammer, standing alongside. Jury instructions were issued in the fall of 2005 that expressly include the "stand your ground" language from this legislation

• NRA President Wayne LaPierre said NRA lobbyist and former president Hammer "conceived" of the Florida bill and lobbied it into law. She ridiculed opponents of the bill, calling them hysterical, and helped the bill’s co-sponsors, Florida state Sen. Durell Peaden (R-Crestview) and Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala), get it passed.

• In 2005, Peaden was an ALEC leader, serving on the Executive Committee of the "Health and Human Services Task Force."

• Baxley, a former head of the Christian Coalition in Florida, is also a member of ALEC. His legislative résumé includes sponsorship of bills creating license plates honoring the Confederacy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Opponents of the "Castle Doctrine" bill predicted it would immunize racially motivated killers...

• The NRA has pushed several other ALEC "model" bills to change state laws on firearms.

• CMD has documented ALEC's legacy of pushing extreme gun legislation, while the organization's corporate board has included Koch Industries. ALEC has said that the Stand Your Ground legislation is no longer one of its model bills but it has done nothing to get the Florida law it previously endorse and pushed for years repealed.

Additional resources from CMD include:

• Brendan Fischer, ALEC Ratified the NRA-Conceived Law That May Protect Trayvon Martin's Killer, March 21, 2012.

• Brendan Ficher, Machine Guns on the Vegas Strip? In Nevada, ALEC/NRA Bill Introduced to Stop Cities from Banning Machine Guns, March 22, 2013.

• Lisa Graves, Resources for Investigating ALEC/NRA Gun Bills , March 30, 2012.

• CMD's research helped break the story of ALEC's role in pushing the Florida Stand Your Ground law as a national model.