Corporations

"I Stand With ALEC" Website Stumbles from the Start

Two months after it was first announced, the "I Stand With ALEC" website supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has finally gone live -- and it is underwhelming.

For the past year, ALEC has been under intense public scrutiny, starting in July 2011 when the Center for Media and Democracy launched ALECexposed.org. Since then, Common Cause has filed complaints with the IRS challenging ALEC's charitable status, groups like People for the American Way and Progress Now! have helped produce reports about ALEC's influence in individual states, Color of Change has been privately and publicly urging corporations to leave ALEC because of the ALEC agenda's negative impact on the African American community, and labor unions and shareholder groups have put increasing pressure on publicly traded companies to drop their ALEC membership. CMD has continued its investigation of ALEC, its operations, and its members through reporting on PRWatch.org, and documented ALEC's role in ratifying as a "model" bill the Stand Your Ground law cited initially to protect Trayvon Martin's killer from arrest or prosecution.

Big Tobacco Cash Floods California to Defeat New Tax

Think Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and special interests supporting him spent a lot in the Wisconsin recall race, at $45 million? Well, tobacco companies spent even more to defeat the ballot measure to raise California's cigarette taxes. How much? $47 million.

The ballot measure, Proposition 29, would have raised California's cigarette tax from its current 87 cents a pack -- half the national average -- to $1.87 a pack. This would still only have been the 16th highest cigarette tax in the country. The revenue created would have financed cancer research and smoking prevention programs.

Walker Wins Recall, Democrats Win Control of the Senate, Halting Right-Wing Agenda

After a 16-month long fight, an astonishing $63.5 million spent, and a people's uprising that attracted international attention and laid the groundwork for a movement that will last for years to come, Governor Scott Walker will keep his seat after Tuesday's recall election, winning 53-46 over challenger Tom Barrett. Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch also survived her recall challenge.

In the early hours of the morning, word came from Southeastern Wisconsin that former state Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine, beat incumbent Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard, with 36,255 votes to Wanggaard's 35,476 votes, according to unofficial results with all precincts reporting. Combined with two other successful Senate recalls in August of 2011, this win means Democrats flipped the Senate from Republican control and put a halt to the Walker agenda.

Koch-Fueled Event Brings out Tea Partiers for Walker and Kleefisch from Wisconsin and other States

Buses paid for by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), as part of its "Better Wisconsin" tour, and the Tea Party Express, with its "Reclaiming America" bus tour, converged in Madison, Wisconsin, Friday evening.

AFP June 2012 Bus Tour for WalkerBoth groups, which do not disclose who is bankrolling their operations, are touring Wisconsin on the eve of the election to rally voters to back controversial Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his allies facing recall. AFP, a non-profit under the tax code and not a registered PAC, has claimed its bus tour has nothing to do with the pending recall election; the Center for Media and Democracy has asked AFP to reveal who is funding its campaign, and the director of its state operations has refused. The Tea Party Express has also previously indicated that as a non-profit group under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code it need not disclose its funders.

Wal-Mart Does Good by Leaving ALEC

It's big news when one of the largest corporations in the world changes its policy. And, today, the really big news is that Wal-Mart announced it was leaving the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been called "a corporate lobby masquerading as a charity."

ALEC Exposed - A project of CMDThe Center for Media and Democracy launched ALECexposed almost a year ago to shine a spotlight on ALEC. CMD's analysis and ongoing investigation have fueled hundreds of news articles and other reports exposing deeply troubling information about ALEC's operations and extreme agenda. And, CMD has served as a research engine that has helped empower hundreds of thousands of people to speak out against ALEC's agenda and activities. Through ALEC's task forces, corporate lobbyists are voting behind closed doors as equals with legislators on templates to change our laws.

Minnesota Elections Board to Investigate ALEC

Minnesota's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board will investigate whether the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) should be registered as a lobbyist in the state, according to a letter sent to Common Cause-Minnesota. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has also asked Wisconsin's ethics board to investigate ALEC's activities, and this month the Wisconsin Attorney General referred a joint complaint about ALEC's lobbying -- by CMD and Common Cause-Wisconsin -- to the state ethics board.

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