Wow. Just wow. (note: bolding added by me for emphasis)
As first reported by Republic Report, APSCU is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate bill-writing front used by industry to lobby state lawmakers. On Saturday, Moran’s own Virginia Democratic party adopted a resolution to denounce ALEC, which has passed dozens of bills in Virginia to curb worker rights, deregulate pollution, and privatize government services.
The resolution pits Moran’s business interests as a lobbyist against those of his own party. Since we have covered both for-profit college lobbying and the influence of ALEC, we decided to travel to Fairfax last weekend to ask Moran about the conflict. Moran refused to take responsibility; at one point, he evasively described himself only as APSCU’s general counsel, when his actual title, as indicated on APSCU’s own website, is “Executive Vice President for Government Relations and General Counsel,” and Moran is frequently seen on Capitol Hill and in other corridors of power arguing for APSCU, which is charged with aggressively lobbying for the industry. In any case, Moran, placing business over party, refused to disassociate his lobbying firm APSCU with ALEC, telling us that he would not or could not take a position:
Believe it or not, a “Moran aide” (I wonder who that was) actually said “We’ll have to call security” on the reporter who was simply asking Moran reasonable, fair questions about his double role as a) DPVA Chair and b) Executive Vice President for Government Relations and General Counsel at ALEC member APSCU. Security? Seriously? Instead, how about DPVA calling security and removing Brian Moran from his office at DPVA headquarters in Richmond? The bottom line is that Brian Moran has become an embarrassment and disgrace to all Virginia Democrats, certainly anyone who invites this guy to their events, appears on stage with him, etc. There’s simply no excuse anymore, and the people who do so need to be called out for it.
P.S. Absolutely superb reporting by Lee Fang and the Republic Report. This is exactly the type of reporting that the corporate media SHOULD be doing, but apparently is too cowardly, lazy, or inept to do. Thank goodness for citizen journalism, that’s all I have to say, because we’d be utterly screwed if we just relied on the decrepit/dying corporate media.
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