Ask any lobbyist. Cornering, coaxing - let alone convincing - even the slimmest majority of Utah lawmakers is a brutal, 24/7 job that makes herding cats through a corn maze look inviting.

Now, imagine influencing the votes of the more than 7,000 state lawmakers spread across 50 states. That's a monumental task for even the best-funded special interest.

But ALEC, the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, offers a brilliant, money-saving, some say insidious, solution: Gather lawmakers in one place (with taxpayer subsidies), establish first-name relationships, then hand out "model" legislation co-written by - guess who? - corporate America.

"From the point of view of the corporations, they have devised themselves an extremely effective organization," says Alan Rosenthal, Rutgers University professor of public policy. "ALEC has developed lobbying to a new level by providing [lawmakers] with a group focused on issues of interest to ALEC and the business community."

It comes as no surprise that ALEC, with its arch-conservative, free-market philosophy, has supporters in Utah's GOP-dominated Legislature. Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, serves proudly as the state chairman for ALEC, and state taxpayers reimbursed him $3,800 to travel to ALEC functions in Chicago, Texas, San Francisco and Washington in 2005 and 2006.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, chairman of ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force (his private-sector counterpart is from Wal-Mart), has introduced in the Utah House several pieces of the organization's model legislation, including a bill to stiffen penalties for shoplifting and mortgage fraud. Ray collected $1,660 in taxpayer money for ALEC travel over the last two years.

House Speaker Greg Curtis and Reps. Merlynn Newbold, Brad Last, Eric Hutchings and Wayne Harper also are members. Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, collected $1,390 in taxpayer reimbursement to travel to recent meetings.

To be clear, ALEC, with its equal policy access for lobbyists and lawmakers, is doing nothing wrong. And while green and progressive groups have denounced the Washington-based organization as secretive, corrosive to democracy and "corporate America's Trojan Horse," they also are racing to emulate its methods, including offering model bills on green issues to their statehouse allies.

But, at least in the case of Utah's progressive community, ALEC remains an enigma. Several politicians and lobbyists interviewed were only vaguely aware of its existence.

State lawmakers pay ALEC dues of only $50 a year - usually out of their campaign chests. But ALEC's "private- sector" members pony up from $5,000 to $50,000, plus fees up to $5,000 to rub elbows in workshops with 2,400 state legislators across the U.S. Corporate members will also shell out for dinners, lunches and other gatherings. ALEC's annual budget is between $5 million and $6 million.

But ALEC's 300 corporate members, including Qwest Communications, Pfizer, Chevron and Utah's private-sector ''chair,'' 1-800 Contacts, get big value for their money. At ALEC, big business interests are voting members of committees and task forces and have the power to block any model legislation they don't like.

Environmental and consumer groups that do not espouse ALEC's free-market bent cannot belong.

Spokesman Jorge Amselle defends ALEC's corporate-lawmaker bill drafting. ''We have a clear process. It goes back and forth. They vote. Our policies are not developed by a small group of chums on a board somewhere.''

State legislators, particularly part-timers in small states, are faced with ever more complex issues, such as telecommunications, health insurance and private prisons. They have historically turned to nonpartisan organizations such as the National Council of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments to help them understand and cope with the avalanche of information.

ALEC offers the same services, with the important addition of model laws, but with a right-wing, free-market twist.

For instance, model legislation offered by Ray's committee includes the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which activists say could be used to prosecute mainstream environmental groups for nonviolent protests. Ray unsuccessfully pushed the bill here a few years ago.

Increased minimum sentences and zero-tolerance laws are often part of ALEC's criminal justice agenda - along with privately operated prisons.

ALEC also pushes tuition vouchers and other so-called school reform measures that have recently been debated on Utah's Capitol Hill.

Jay Magure, government relations vice president for 1-800 Contacts, says ALEC, like the NCSL, is an opportunity for industries to bring legislators up to speed on pressing problems. He says that it is also a great opportunity to lobby on issues dear to 1-800 Contacts and other corporations.

But the same kind of lobbying goes on at NCSL and CSG, he says. ''All of those organizations are funded in some way by private enterprise. It's just more open at ALEC.''

Bramble, Ray and Sen. Howard Stephenson, himself a registered lobbyist, find nothing questionable about their involvement. ALEC's free-market orientation reflects their political beliefs. NCSL, to which every lawmaker in the nation belongs - leans too far to the left for their tastes. "ALEC is an organization for conservative legislators. It makes no bones about it," Stephenson says.

Bramble, who soon may join ALEC's board, says, "I've never been lobbied by ALEC on issues." But he adds, "What happens at cocktail parties and such is the same as at NCSL meetings."

But Rosenthal, who studies and writes extensively on lobbyists and influence peddling, remains dubious. "[Private-sector members] know what they are doing. They are not wasting their money."

Considering the extent of corporate control and financing of ALEC, Rosenthal says, "If I were an individual legislator, I would feel uncomfortable with that kind of involvement."

NCSL spokesman Bill Wyatt is clearly irked when lawmakers equate his group with ALEC. "NCSL is a bipartisan organization; we don't have a political bent one way or the other," he says. (Former Utah Speaker Marty Stephens, hardly a left-wing progressive, is a former president of NCSL.)

"Whatever the issue we are talking about, we will always bend over backwards to find people on all sides of the issue," says Wyatt.

Yes, he acknowledges, NCSL often invites private-sector input on issues, but "at no time are they actively involved in policy making. In ALEC you can buy your way to the table."

NCSL's 7,382 members represent every state legislature. Utah pays about $104,000 annually to belong. The state pays another $83,000 for membership in the Council of State Governments, a similar national lawmaker organization.

Spokesman Amselle says "a couple of hundred to several hundred" of ALEC's model bills are introduced annually in statehouses across the nation. "Maybe a half to a third get enacted."

It is difficult to track ALEC's success rate because the organization considers its model legislation proprietary information, restricting online access to members only. Also, many ALEC-inspired bills mutate during the legislative process or make their way into legislatures directly from corporate lobbyists.

Ray's ALEC bills are faring well this year. HB4, Organized Retail Theft, has passed both houses, and HB25, Mortgage Fraud, has passed the House.

Bramble says he is working on telecommunications legislation (Magure is co-chairman of ALEC's Telecommunications & Information Technology Task Force) that he hopes ALEC will adopt as model legislation and disseminate to other states. "They weren't driven by big business and ALEC has embraced all those bills collectively."

In the end, says Rosenthal, the final check on ALEC's agenda is each state legislature and the energetic opposition of civil rights and consumer and environmental activists.

"These bills should be given a thorough review and acted upon - that is the responsibility of the Legislature," he says. "If there is no opposition, that is a dangerous situation; opposition creates the real deliberative process."