This article is an excerpt from The Fourth Branch: How State Government Can Save Our Union.

President Reagan entered to a standing ovation. It was the last year of his presidency, and he was feeling, as he often did, nostalgic. “I’m not joking when I say that every one of the eight times I’ve met with you these eight years, I’ve wished more like you were in our Congress,” the president said to his audience of state lawmakers from each state in the country. They were part of a group most Americans had never heard of, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC for short.