Henry Hyde

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Congress allowed the independent counsel statute to expire on June 30, 1999, after the Starr investigation of President Clinton cost $70 million over five years and culminated in Clinton's impeachment and Senate acquittal. Both parties agreed the statute had proven too powerful and politically unaccountable. The independent counsel was replaced with DOJ's internal special counsel regulations that gave the Attorney General authority to appoint and fire investigators.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, reached peak influence during the 1990s and 2000s when its model legislation was enacted in roughly 1,000 bills annually across state legislatures. ALEC brought together state legislators and corporate lobbyists to draft model bills in areas including tort reform, voter identification laws, stand-your-ground statutes, and environmental deregulation. Legislators could introduce ALEC-drafted bills verbatim without public disclosure of the corporate authorship.

Paul Weyrich, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), and Reagan 1968 campaign aide Lou Barnett co-founded the American Legislative Exchange Council in Chicago in September 1973. The group, initially called the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, paired corporate lobbyists with state lawmakers to draft model bills. Weyrich had also co-founded the Heritage Foundation seven months earlier, linking the new state-level operation to the emerging national conservative infrastructure.