I have watched the activities of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over the last few months as it developed a process to almost do without the need for meetings of the various state legislatures by having national meetings of those who control the state bodies, so that proposals made on high could be transferred directly to other states and moved to gain the ends of ALEC.
It is interesting that a friend and fellow local church man who is set to become the next Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, now serves as chairman of the Missouri chapter of ALEC.
I was informed recently that Coca-Cola had dumped ALEC in a memo from the Center for Media and Democracy when they announced that they and their supporters scored a major victory when Coke announced that it had elected to discontinue its membership with ALEC. Kraft Foods quickly followed suit, and it was revealed that Pepsi had quietly withdrawn earlier.
According to a statement Coke made to the Washington Examiner: "Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our company and industry."
The Center for Media and Democracy launched its public campaign against Coca-Cola last year, asking Coke and other major corporations "to stop funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate bill mill undermining our democracy" and pointing out: "Your financial supports ALEC's agenda to:
- Suppress voting through restrictive Voter ID laws.
- Push climate change denial and repeal environmental protections.
- Undermine public schools and push for-profit school companies.
- Limit consumers' rights and the basic right of workers to organize.
- Privatize Medicare, Social Security, and public institutions.
Color of Change (COC) launched an allied campaign targeting ALEC supporting corporation in December 2011, thus bringing what they consider a favorable action by Coke and others.
CMD launched a new set of petitions to all corporation remaining on ALEC's corporate board last week in the wake of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin.
I merely report these actions in case you missed it over the busy Easter Weekend and week we've had.