CHEYENNE n Wyoming's legislators form a citizen's legislature n ordinary people, who like yourself and your neighbors, work for a living and strive to do what's best for the people of Wyoming, within the confines of the state and United States Constitutions.

Because Wyoming legislators put on their pants (or pantyhose) one leg at a time, they don't necessarily come up with ideas for legislation all on their own, out of their own fertile imaginations.

Sometimes they get help, from local and national sources, some of which might surprise Wyoming citizens.

According to Wyoming legislators and legislative staff, there are several organizations out there that provide research, data and even model legislation to legislatures and legislators throughout the country.

These include:

• The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is a bipartisan

organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the nation's 50 states, its commonwealths and territories. NCSL provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas.

Headquarters is in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1975 from several legislative organizations.

• The Council of State Governments (CSG) is a bipartisan organization that

serves the executive, judicial and legislative branches of state government through leadership education, research and information services.

Headquarters is in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1933.

• The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a bipartisan

membership association for conservative state lawmakers, to advance the "Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty." Headquarters is in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, who also helped found the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, the Moral Majority and the Council for National Policy.

• The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL)

provides states with non-partisan legislation that is consistent from state to state. Headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1892.

• The Progressive Legislative Action Network's (PLAN) mission is "to pass

progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators." Headquarters is New York, NY. Founded in 2005 with the backing of several unions, activist groups and progressive legislators n essentially an anti-ALEC.

Dan Pauli, legislative director for Wyoming's Legislative Services Organization, said he's in constant contact with NCSL and CSG on various studies and surveys, and has access to hundreds of bills that he and his staff can compare and contrast to Wyoming's needs.

Occasionally, he receives model legislation from NCCUSL, and simply passes them along to relevant committees.

"It has been years since I've seen anything with the ALEC logo on it," said Pauli, though he readily conceded that he couldn't tell whether or not a bill was originated in ALEC or not.

NCSL, CSG and NCCUSL are stringently bipartisan, with no corporate or union leadership, even to the extent of alternating officials by political party (NCSL), year by year. Corporations, unions and other special interest groups or associations do have access to NCSL and CSG legislators and staff, via advertising in house publications, exhibit booths at meetings and attending conferences.

ALEC and PLAN have definite tilts to the right and the left, respectively, though claims of bipartisanship are undercut by ALEC being predominately Republican in orientation, while PLAN is predominately Democratic.

ALEC, which claims 2,400 legislator members, charges legislators $100 per biennium to join (constituting less than 2 percent of the annual budget), but then charges corporations (over 300) and associations graduated memberships at $5,000; $10,000; $25,000 and $50,000 to sit at the table with legislators and craft "model" legislation. Corporate funds underwrite travel scholarships, by which legislators and their families can attend national meetings.

ALEC's corporate members have a keen interest in the bills that they craft.

For example, model legislation for "three strikes" and "minimum sentencing"

-- laws to keep convicted criminals in prison longer nwas partially crafted by the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison organization, when it sat on ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force.

PLAN's officers are divided between New York and Helena, Montana. The organization is co-chaired by Steve Doherty, the former Minority Leader of the Montana Senate, and David Sirota, a Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

PLAN's kickoff event last August was co-sponsored by, among others, Moveon.org, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Steelworkers of America, and progressive philanthropists Andy and Deborah Rappaport.

Too new to be called an opposite mirror of ALEC, PLAN is striving to build networks among progressive legislators and activist groups, and develop model legislation.

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Information hard to come by from Wyoming's ALEC chief By BRODIE FARQUHAR Casper Star Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE n The odds are fairly even, that if you ask your state legislator whether he or she is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the answer will be "Yes."

(Of course, every member of the Wyoming Legislature and Legislative Service Office is a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments, by virtue of being elected to or employed by the Wyoming Legislature.) The trouble is, ALEC itself and Rep. Pete Illoway, R-Cheyenne (a member of ALEC's national board of directors) won't tell you who is a member of ALEC.

Illoway did say that of Wyoming's 90 state legislators, close to half are members of ALEC, but he refused to provide a list, though he said he has both Republican and Democratic members.

Interviewed earlier this week in his office, Rep. Illoway said he took great offense of a letter that had appeared that morning in the Casper Star Tribune, from Brett Glass.

Glass, an Internet access provider in Wyoming, charged that "ALEC drafts "model" bills which favor its corporate sponsors. It then encourages state legislators to introduce the bills in their home states. This year's concealed weapons bill, for example, contains language from ALEC's "Concealed Carry Outright Recognition Act," while the "duty to retreat" bill was based on ALEC's "Castle Doctrine Act" (as in, "a man's home is his castle"). Both were drafted by a committee chaired by a lobbyist from Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer of firearms and ammunition. A bill which would have increased tobacco taxes, and used the proceeds to fund substance-abuse prevention, was opposed strongly by legislators and lobbyists involved with ALEC -- none of whom were registered as lobbying for the group."

Illoway said he's used model legislation from ALEC once eight years ago n a bill against the Kyoto global warming treaty. "I haven't used a model bill since then," he said.

He said he didn't know of any ALEC-oriented bills introduced this session, although an ALEC Report Card said five such bills had been introduced and one passed into law. (ALEC headquarters did not respond to a request about what those bills were.) Illoway said that as a conservative and as "an anti-tax guy," he enjoys going to ALEC conferences mostly to interact with other like-minded legislators from around the country.

"It is good to see what others are up to," he said. Such interaction gives him a chance to hear a range of ideas, Illoway said, "and I might come down in the middle."

Illoway said the other legislative organizations do good jobs. He said NCSL is oriented toward legislative staff, because they're the ones who actually draft bills for legislators who present ideas and ask staff to put those ideas in legislative language.

NCSL performs extensive research on hot legislative issues, said Illoway, to benefit Wyoming legislators. He said Senator Charles Scott, R-Casper, has developed considerable expertise in health issues with NCSL assistance, as has Sen. Robert Peck, R-Riverton, on revenue issues.

CSG also does a good job, said Illoway, who said he's benefited from a regional meeting in Portland, Oregon.

"All these groups do good work," said Illoway.

Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, agreed with that assessment, saying he found value in all the main groups, primarily as a way to exchange ideas with other legislators around the country or in the West.

Zwonitzer said he viewed ALEC as a conservative alternative to NCSL, but believes ALEC model legislation is more common in other states than Wyoming.

He said ALEC tends to focus more on repealing legislation than other organizations. Last session, the only ALEC bill he knew of in the Wyoming Legislature was the Common Sense Consumption Act, designed to prevent lawsuits from people who ate too much fast food and became obese.

Rep. Del McComie, R-Lander, said he's never joined ALEC, because it doesn't seem right to accept big corporation money, in order to attend ALEC conferences. McComie said legislators have all sorts of sources for legislative ideas n from neighbors to lobbyists to national organizations.

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More information on the Internet

You can review the bills passed this session by the Wyoming Legislature at {M7http://legisweb.state.wy.us/ See ALEC at {M7www.alec.org See NCSL at {M7www.ncsl.org See CSG at {M7www.csg.org See NCCUSL at {M7www.nccusl.org See PLAN at {M7www.progressivestates.org