The American Legislative Exchange Council is the corporatefinanced bill mill that thinks up reams of anti-labor, anti-consumer, anti-environment, anti-democracy and other anti-people laws favored by its corporate funders. It then works with Republican lawmakers in state legislatures to introduce about 1,000 of these cookie-cutter bills every year in statehouses all over the country. Until recently, ALEC largely operated clandestinely — but such watchdog groups as Center for Media and Democracy, Color of Change and Nation magazine have now outed it as the insidious force behind some of America’s mostextreme, right-wing legislation.