With thousands of consumers expressing their concerns about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to corporations across America, even former supporters of ALEC are feeling the heat, and some are rushing to distance themselves from the organization. YUM!
Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker was in Illinois, speaking to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce on April 17, and a huge crowd of protestors was there to "unwelcome" him.
While Walker compared himself to Honest Abe on the inside of the Lincoln Hotel in Springfield, an estimated 4,000 workers rallied on the outside. Props included a giant rat and a large Walker image on a board imprinted with the words "don't Badger us."
As a stampede of global corporations drop their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the right-wing organization is apparently desperate for funds.
Several public interest organizations, including the Center for Media and Democracy, Color of Change, Common Cause, People for the American Way, CREDO and others have been asking corporations to stop funding ALEC for its role in helping spread policies like voter suppression and "Shoot First." In the last two weeks, some of America's largest corporations, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, MARS, Intuit, McDonald's, Wendy's, and Kraft Foods have announced they will not be renewing their ALEC membership. ALEC receives ninety-eight percent of its funding from its corporate members and from foundations, and only through this funding can ALEC advance its agenda.
Association with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is becoming so toxic that even being listed on ALEC Exposed as a former supporter of the organization is rattling corporate cages. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has received a letter from the online ticket sales company Ticketmaster referring to the list of "ALEC Corporations" on our site Sourcewatch.org.
Ticketmaster's letter does not directly deny any current or former involvement with ALEC, but "advises" CMD to "cease and desist from including Ticketmaster on your site," objecting to "the suggestion that Ticketmaster is somehow affiliated with ALEC" and threatening to sue CMD for libel and defamation.
As major corporate funders cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the call is raised for ALEC state legislators to drop ALEC as well, not only is Koch Industries maintaining its support, but the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has stepped in to defend ALEC in its time of need.
The seventh and eighth corporations to publicly state that they cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are candy-maker Mars and the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), Arizona's largest electric utility. Mars had been an exhibitor at ALEC's 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans. Mars is the maker of Skittles, the snack Trayvon Martin had purchased before he was shot by George Zimmerman, whose arrest was delayed due to an NRA-backed gun law that became an ALEC "model" bill.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference Wednesday in Washington, DC to denounce the "Shoot First" law conceived by the National Rifle Association and promoted through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The law, pushed by its supporters under the name "Stand Your Ground," had been cited in Florida to potentially allow Trayvon Martin's killer to escape liability.
On April 11, the Center for Media and Democracy filed a letter with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board documenting how the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, provided the ethics board erroneous information about corporate-funded gifts to ALEC legislative members. This letter supplements the complaint CMD filed last month.
A guest post by Greg Colvin, a partner at the firm Adler & Colvin, originally published at OurFuture.org.
No doubt about it, large unlimited donations are flowing into SuperPACs from rich individuals and corporations aimed at influencing who is elected at all levels of government in 2012. With the SuperPACs and other forms of political committees regulated by the federal and state election agencies, or by the IRS under section 527, at least we know who the donors are.
Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and other progressive groups publicly called on McDonald's to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the fast food giant announced it has left the organization. McDonald's is the fifth major corporation in a week to withdraw from ALEC, and groups are now calling for legislators to follow suit.
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