San Francisco's Right Wing Think Tank

We have a right wing think tank right here in San Francisco. The Pacific Research Institute. Hard to believe, eh? Yesterday, I opened the Examiner and found an editorial from the editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute that argued that Schwarzenegger is right: unions are a special interest. The premise of the argument was that because unions are diminishing in this country and getting smaller, unions have become a special interest, not a movement.

I humbly disagree. Unions are not diminishing. They are not dying. They are being intentionally murdered by large corporations like Wal-Mart that fight unionization and undermine other corporations that are unionized. Union leaders like Andy Stern, President of SEIU International, are struggling to turn this trend around. He has threatened to leave the AFL-CIO unless they devote 50% of their dues to organizing new members in corporations like Wal-Mart.

Right wing think tanks like the Pacific Research Institute provide support to the conservative infrastructure that has taken over our country. The Heritage Foundation provides think tank positions on the Federal level, but on the state level, organizations like the Pacific Research Institute provide California legislators policy briefs on privatization of public services and dozens of conservative action items. More importantly they draft opinion pieces, model press releases, model legislation, and even model remarks for legislators to make. Former Governor Pete Wilson used the Pacific Research Institute for information regarding privatization and water rights.

These think tanks are linked to each other through the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization with over 2400 conservative statewide legislators as members. ALEC also helps provide the links between these state orientated think tanks, like the Pacific Research Institute.

As former director of ALEC once said,
"ALEC's goal is to ensure that these state legislators are so well informed, so well armed, that they can set the terms of the public policy debate, that they can change the agenda, that they can lead. This is the infrastructure that will reclaim the states for our movement."

This quote is from the early 90s, nearly 14 years ago. The right has become so well-armed that they can set the terms of the debate, even in San Francisco sometimes. Especially when the institute has editorial directors that can provide model editorials for newspapers across the state, like they did for the San Francisco Examiner.