Corporate Sponsors Quit ALEC; Progress Texas Urges Texas Legislators to Follow
To date, four major corporate sponsors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have indicated they will not renew their memberships to the controversial conservative organization. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Inc. and Intuit - which does the Quicken software - made the announcements in recent days amid mounting criticism over ALEC's backing of "Stand Your Ground" gun laws, which have been implicated in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. From the Center for Media & Democracy:
A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011.
Kraft Foods also announced that it won’t renew its membership in ALEC when it expires this spring, according to an email from Kraft Corporate Affairs Director Susan Davison. These announcements follow on the news that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are out.
That four major corporate sponsors of ALEC have already left is very telling. We detailed how large ALEC's footprint is in Texas in our inaugural report, ALEC Exposed in Texas. The question now is - how long until Texas legislators follow suit?
Below is a copy of our inaugural report, which contains a full list of Texas legislators involved in ALEC:
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