ALEC Establishes Cabinet Task Forces and Partners with Reagan's Task Force on Federalism

In 1981, ALEC formalized its systematic corporate legislative capture mechanism by establishing seven Cabinet Task Forces that worked directly with the Reagan administration on policy development. President Ronald Reagan formed a national Task Force on Federalism headed by U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt (R-Nevada), which came to rely heavily on the work of ALEC members for expert testimony. ALEC’s then-National Chairman Tom Stivers of Idaho served on the Presidential Task Force on Federalism, while ALEC members like State Senator John Kasich of Ohio and Senate President Robert Monier of New Hampshire regularly met before the committee.

Reagan Administration Integration

ALEC established seven Cabinet Task Forces specifically designed to interface with Reagan administration policy development, creating unprecedented direct channels between corporate-funded state legislators and federal executive power. The Task Force on Federalism represented Reagan’s broader “New Federalism” agenda to devolve federal power to states—where ALEC’s corporate members could more easily influence legislation through model bills. That same year, ALEC published and distributed 10,000 copies of a report called “Reagan and the States,” which discussed various methods for decentralizing government from the federal to the state level.

Formalization of Model Legislation Task Force System

The 1981 Cabinet Task Forces represented ALEC’s first systematic formalization of its task force structure for drafting model legislation. President Reagan personally encouraged ALEC to form these task forces, providing presidential legitimacy to the corporate legislative coordination mechanism. The task forces brought together state legislators, corporate representatives, and Reagan administration officials to develop policy templates that could be simultaneously deployed across multiple states. This structure allowed corporations to draft legislation at ALEC meetings, have it validated by federal executive branch officials, and then distribute it to ALEC’s growing network of state legislators for introduction in state capitals.

Significance for Corporate Legislative Capture

The 1981 formalization of ALEC’s task force system transformed corporate influence from ad-hoc lobbying to systematic legislative production. By integrating with Reagan’s federalism agenda, ALEC positioned corporate-written legislation as aligned with conservative governance philosophy rather than special interest capture. The task force structure gave corporations institutional equality with elected officials—they didn’t merely lobby legislators, they sat as co-equal partners in the drafting process. Reagan’s endorsement provided political cover: legislators could claim they were supporting “New Federalism” and “states’ rights” while actually advancing corporate deregulation agendas written by the companies that funded ALEC.

The Cabinet Task Forces established during this period evolved by 1986 into 12 powerful task forces, several of which later broke off to become independent think tanks, further expanding ALEC’s influence network. This 1981 institutionalization marked the moment when ALEC transitioned from a conservative legislative caucus into a sophisticated corporate legislative production machine with direct White House coordination, establishing patterns of regulatory capture that would accelerate through subsequent decades.