Editor,

Sen. Barbara Bailey finally admitted what has been suspected for years — she is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

This past weekend, during two of the town hall meetings sponsored by the three state legislators from our district, Bailey first admitted that she is a member of ALEC at the Mount Vernon meeting. After realizing what she had admitted, decided to be less than candid during the afternoon Oak Harbor meeting, during which she said that she “doesn’t know if she is still a member of ALEC or not.”

Yeah right, and I have some swamp land to sell you, too.

And while you are at it, do you know if you are still a member of ALEC’s powerful Health and Human Services Task Force, or have you decided that you don’t remember your intimate involvement in that task force too?

A number of the corporate members of that same task force, mostly corporations from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, have contributed heavily to Bailey’s campaigns over the years. Now her voting record in favor of pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, against the interests of patients and consumers, makes sense.

We also now know where much of the legislation she sponsors comes from.

For years, Bailey was sponsoring and co-sponsoring ALEC “model” legislation in furtherance of the extreme corporatist agenda of the Koch Brothers and other corporate sponsors of ALEC.

She sponsored House Bill 1774, the ALEC “model” voter suppression bill in 2007 and also Senate Bill 5851, the “model” legislation being pushed by ALEC-affiliated legislators around the country in order to phase-out public employees’ retirement security.

Another goal is to repeal the voter-approved $15 minimum wage in SeaTac and city council-approved paid sick leave ordinance in Seattle, as well as block any local jurisdictions from creating any similar standards in the future.

These bills are a few of the many ALEC-sponsored bills that Bailey has sponsored, co-sponsored and otherwise supported over her years in the state legislature.

With friends like her, the workers of the 10th District definitely do not need any more enemies.

Does anyone still believe that Barbara Bailey “doesn’t know if she is still a member of ALEC or not?” Her actions certainly do speak louder than her hollow words.

Come on, Sen. Bailey, level with the hard-working men and women of the 10th District. Come clean once and for all and tell them that you are part of the reason that their wages have been stagnant for many years and that full-time jobs with truly valuable benefits are becoming a thing of the past thanks to ALEC and its affiliated legislators like you.

Pam Fick

Oak Harbor