ALEC - AGs Request (Illinois Attorney General)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140/1 to 11), I hereby request the following records:

- All communications between members of this office and employees or representatives of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
- All communications containing the keywords "ALEC" or "American Legislative Exchange Council".
- Any files or documents attached to the above communications.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Alex Richardson

Hi Caitlin,

It was nice speaking with you! For now lets narrow the search in the following ways:

- The search can be limited to the period from Jan. 2010 to the present.
- If possible, perform a case sensitive search on the term 'ALEC' so that terms like 'Alec' are excluded.
- Communications with members of ALEC may be limited to electronic communications with the domain '@alec.org' and this part of the request may be processed separately.

If you wouldn't mind, take a look at the number of communications we're talking about here and let me know what it looks like. From there we can narrow things down further if need be - I have a few ideas about the direction we could go.

I would also like to request that any fees be waived in consideration of the fact that this disclosure is not in my commercial interest. Rather, it will be published freely for public consumption on a news media website, where it will serve the public interest by contributing to a better understanding of the relationship between the state AG and a well known lobbying organization.

Thank you again for your time!

Best,
Alex Richardson

Hey Ms. Knutte,

Seems like there's been a mix up. Did you receive my email dated 5/12? If that is an insufficient narrowing, I'm happy to work with you to whittle things down further. I'm sending this email to you on 5/19 - if I haven't heard from you by 5/21 to confirm that you're getting it I'll give you a call and we can figure out the disconnect. It may be that our platform just has the wrong email address for you.

Thanks for the patience,
Alex Richardson

Hi Caitlin,

Nice speaking with you again! To put it in writing, I am amending my request to include:

- Only electronic communications.
- Only communications occurring between 2010 and the present.
- Only communications to/from/cc/bcc the domain @alec.org

In addition, would you also do a separate search for the keyword 'American Legislative Exchange Council.' This search may be limited exclusively to the Attorney General.

Let me know what each of these requests looks like and we can proceed from there. Thanks again for the help, please don't hesitate to get in touch for anything else.

Best,
Alex Richardson