Groups Write to ALEC's Corporate Board Regarding Trayvon Martin

Submitted by Sara Jerving on

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) joined with United Republic, Rebuild the Dream and ColorofChange.org in a letter to the 20 members of the "Private Enterprise Board" of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The letter asks the corporations to sever ties with ALEC and end their financial support of the organization. The request is made out of respect for Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year old who was shot and killed in Florida last month. Trayvon's killer could be protected from justice under a Florida "Stand Your Ground" law that became a template for an ALEC model bill introduced and adopted in over 20 states.

The letter is reprinted in full below. You can send a message to ALEC corporate member Coca-Cola by clicking here.

Dear Members of the American Legislative Exchange Council Private Enterprise Board:

In 2005, the American Legislative Exchange Council adopted a model bill that was almost identical to Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law enacted earlier that year. The Florida legislators who introduced that act, Sen. Durell Peaden and Rep. Dennis Baxley, were, like your companies, members of ALEC.

That Florida law has allowed George Zimmerman to avoid arrest for killing Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old boy, and it could make it easier for Zimmerman to avoid prosecution. As you know, Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed, was shot while returning from buying a snack.

ALEC has made this bill a priority, and numerous ALEC-affiliated state legislators have pushed it. These laws have been adopted in at least twenty more states.

ALEC has long been a central force behind state laws that harm the health and safety of Americans. Last year, it emerged that in 2009 ALEC had endorsed the model for state "Voter ID" laws, which make it harder for low-income people, communities of color, young people, the disabled and elderly, and others to vote, and ALEC legislators have sponsored those bills in numerous states. And now we know that ALEC backed the law that could let Trayvon Martin's killer walk free, the same law that risks more tragedies in the other states.

We call on your companies to stop supporting ALEC's reckless agenda, which harms the communities in which you do business.

On behalf of our organizations and members, we ask that you formally and publicly end your affiliation with, and your financial support for, the American Legislative Exchange Council, out of respect for Trayvon Martin and his family, and in the interest of making our country less violent and more united.

Please respond by contacting Suzanne Merkelson of United Republic at 202 / 299-0911, smerkelson@unitedrepublic.org, or the above mailing address. If we don't hear from you soon, we will follow up. Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Van Jones, co-founder, Rebuild the Dream

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director, ColorofChange.org

Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy

Lee Fang, David Halperin, Zaid Jilani, Suzanne Merkelson, Matt Stoller

Editors, Republic Report, a Project of United Republic

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Comments

A-one-of-us replied on

wow why couldn't they have just pretended to kill the kid--like all the famous singers and bands that pretended to have died in airplane crashes and drug overdose. So this kid is like the perfect poster child to raise up so many different kinds of issues. Let me guess-the producers of this tragic docudrama want who to win it? call me cynical, but this poor kid is being used as a martyred domino that is necessary to start a new game. Hopefully this will lead to curtail some long-term abuses of some very expensive propoganda that has been used at everyone's expense to create higher taxes, higher prices, higher crime, higher stress, higher casualties, higher greed, higher and nastier competition.