Senator Melvin, shouldn’t you report your ALEC reimbursement?

by David Safier

I posted about ALEC, the very conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, giving attendees to its conferences generous reimbursements — up to $1,900 for its upcoming August conference in New Orleans. Fifty-two of our Republican state legislators are members of ALEC, which has hundreds of pieces of ready made "Model legislation" on file for Rs to carry back to their states.

Anna Johnson made a Facebook comment about the post, writing that lots of Republicans listed the ALEC reimbursement on their campaign finance reports, but not Cap'n Al Melvin. And yet, according to Johnson,

I know that Al Melvin went to the last American Legislative Exchange Council meeting. (he talked about it on the floor of the senate).

Johnson proved her point by linking to Melvin's campaign finance statement. Gifts over $500? "NONE," Melvin wrote in all caps.

Other Republicans were more scrupulous. Kirk Adams, for instance, wrote, "*See travel reimbursement attached*" on the Gifts line. His gifts list includes two ALEC trips, two Aspen-Rodel Fellowship Seminars, one National Speaker's Conference, one Technology Conference and one Lumina Productivity Conference. Johnson found that Lesko, Kavanagh, Harper, Ash, Barto and Barton also reported the ALEC gift.

Is Melvin required to report the "scholarship" — that's what ALEC calls it — as a gift? I don't know. Did he pay for the conference out of his own pocket and not request reimbursement? Again, I don't know. But in this day of FiestaBowl-gate, Melvin might consider amending his campaign finance statement, so he doesn't get labeled an ALEC-gate-or.