Template:ALEC News
ALEC newseBay Becomes 100th Company to Cut Ties to "Controversial" ALEC"We are not renewing membership in ALEC," eBay tweeted on the afternoon of December 18. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) had joined the climate change awareness group Forecast the Facts, Credo Action, and others in asking eBay to leave what Reuters called the "controversial political group ALEC" in recent weeks. A Twitterstorm on December 17 was followed by the delivery of a petition containing nearly 100,000 petitions to eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California on December 18. eBay's announcement came shortly after. "After our annual review of eBay Inc's memberships in trade associations and third party organizations we've decided not to renew our membership with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)," eBay Senior Director of Corporate Communications Abby Smith confirmed. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Fumes: Transparency Threatens Corporate Free Speech! After spending hundreds of millions of undisclosed funds on state and federal elections, the corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council are demanding that state legislators preserve their "right" to anonymously spend money on politics and curry favor with elected officials, and to thwart shareholder efforts to hold the corporations they own accountable. A December 3 workshop titled "Playing the Shame Game: A Campaign that Threatens Corporate Free Speech," held at ALEC's meeting this week in Washington, DC, warned of "an increasing chorus of anti-business activists calling for an end to corporate political participation in the name of ferreting out so-called 'dark money," according to an agenda obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy. Panelists set their sights on campaign finance disclosure laws and shareholder proposals aimed at promoting transparency in corporate political spending. It is little surprise that corporate interests would peddle secrecy to the hundreds of Republican state legislators at ALEC. Read the rest of this item here. More Corporations Flee as ALEC Rolls Out Its Legislative Agenda Only nine funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council's annual winter meeting in Washington, DC, are listed on ALEC's conference brochure this year. The small number comes at a time when ALEC is crowing about the November 4 elections, which swept in more Republican legislators and potential recruits for ALEC's operations--where elected lawmakers vote as equals with corporations behind closed doors on "model' bills to change Americans' rights. The way ALEC works has been called a "corporate dating service" by U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who has observed ALEC's closed-door votes of corporate lobbyists and state legislators. But with nearly 100 private sector funders having left ALEC since CMD launched ALECexposed.org in 2011 and citizens across the country began learning about how special interests wine and dine lawmakers through ALEC to push controversial bills into law, ALEC brochures listing corporate sponsors are not as full as they used to be. (The list of sponsors is here.) Read the rest of this item here. |
