In case you haven't heard ...
Civil rights organization welcomes news of sixth corporation cutting ties with right-wing group since launch of campaign
ColorOfChange.org -- April 11, 2012
The following is a statement from ColorOfChange.org Executive Director Rashad Robinson:
"Wendy's announcement that it decided not to renew its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council is further evidence that corporations are beginning to understand how dangerous association with ALEC is for their brands.
"We applaud Wendy's for recognizing that this is not the kind of association that its customers support. In announcing its decision to end its membership in ALEC, Wendy's joins McDonald's, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Intuit on the list of corporations that place the integrity of their brands over connection to a right-wing group that pushes bills that threaten Black communities' access to the polls and ability to walk the streets of their neighborhoods without fearing for their lives.
"Today, ALEC issued a statement in response to the efforts of our members and allies. We know that ALEC's discriminatory voter ID law was designed to intimidate, dissuade, and block voters from participating in our democracy. But of course ALEC doesn't want to talk about their role in voter suppression, or in spreading the deadly 'kill at will' laws that have prevented justice for Trayvon Martin and continue to endanger communities across the country. These policies are not pro-business, they are anti-American.
"Our members are engaging in the free marketplace of ideas, using their power as consumers, and reaching out to corporations to ask that they stop funding ALEC. If companies want to continue funding ALEC's dangerous agenda, they must do it in the light of day. ALEC's activities can no longer take place behind closed doors and outside the public view.
[...]
Take Action
ColorOfChange.org
ALEC is, taking Action ...
ALEC is not sitting back, quietly waiting for the "free market" and "consumer advocacy" to take its course.
No, ALEC is fighting back ... and in the process revealing exactly WHAT they are fighting for ... and who's interests they really represent ..
Letter: ALEC's contributions worthwhile
The Detroit News -- April 12, 2012
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To the contrary, the public should be afraid of ALEC's critics, who are part of a well-funded effort led by radical organizations to undermine the American system of free enterprise and to score political points that threaten jobs, economic competitiveness and efforts to put more Americans back to work.
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Michigan has seen this first-hand in Gov. Rick Snyder. In his first year in office, he balanced the budget ahead of schedule. He overhauled the state tax code by eliminating the unfair Michigan Business Tax, replacing it with a flat corporate income tax of 6 percent.
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Fostering the exchange of these kinds of pro-growth, solutions-oriented ideas is precisely why ALEC exists.
It's also precisely why there's an army of special interest activists up in arms. They know that ALEC's work in promoting and passing resolutions to rein in Obamacare is a threat to their greatest cause.
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The Detroit News, Opinion, Editorials
-- by Kaitlin Buss, Director of Communications, American Legislative Exchange Council, Washington, D.C.
Here's another ALEC 'stand their ground' PR missive ...
WASHINGTON, April 12, 2012 (PRNewswire-USNewswire) -- Ron Scheberle, Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), issued the following statement today [...]
"First, the people now attacking ALEC and its members are the same people who have always pushed for big-government solutions. Our support for free markets and limited government stands in stark contrast to their state-dependent utopia. [...]
"Second, ALEC is one of America's premier ideas laboratories when it comes to advocating free market reforms. [...] We work to promote the Freedom of Choice in Health Care initiative against ObamaCare's individual mandate. We support fair tax policies and tort reform. This is an all-out intimidation campaign designed to promote government-based solutions rather than the free-market principles that we have seen work.
"Finally, now more than ever, America needs organizations like ALEC to foster the discussion and debate of policy differences in an open, transparent way and not fall back on bullying, intimidation and threats."
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Statement by ALEC in Response to the Outpouring of Support in Wake of Intimidation Campaign Against Its Members
-- by American Legislative Exchange Council, prnewswire.com -- April 12, 2012
Take Action
ColorOfChange.org
ALEC IS, taking Action ... against the interests of working Americans.
Heck, Rick Snyder is their 'role model' for what else they plan on doing to American workers and their families.
Just ask Michigan, how well THAT Corporate-takeover of their local communities services and local city sovereignty, is working out for them.
It was a unprecedented tax give away to Corporations, at the expense of public education, who had to suffer draconian CEO Snyder funding cuts ... all to coddle corporate CEOs -- you know, ALEC's membership.
Welcome to ALEC's America, people.