I cant remember what its called but you can do it in InDesign, where you can have all the text use the same horizontal alignment so they lineup properly in columns. Can that be done in Illustrator?
Nope. It's not available in Illustrator. You're looking for a baseline grid, but that concept does not apply to Illustrator. To get that effect in Illustrator you would need to use consistent leading and careful alignment of text boxes.