It's getting hot for ALEC corporate members, and well it should be. This was an entity that needed the dark, and belonged in the shadows. As with the uproar over the Kommen Foundation, as with the uproar over Rush Limbaugh who is still without the sponsors who have left him, as with the long and growing boycott that confronted Glenn Beck who has returned to the relative obscurity he dserves.
The culture war is ugly, it is hurtful and demeaning, it is broadly unpopular outside a narrow segment of the base of the GOP and Tea Party.
Corruption = abuse of public office for private gain
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| McDonald's as rats, for having ever been part of corrupt ALEC in the first place, (but better late than never for leaving - than you, Mickey D's!) |
That leaves us the OTHER part of ALEC, the part where the conservatives submit any and all
largely identical legislation that ALEC produces, TO BENEFIT SPECIAL INTERESTS.
We need to be shining the light on them, next.
We need to be identifying them to the electorate.
We need to be focusing the PUBLIC OUTRAGE on them next.
We need to find them, we need to vote them out of office in 2012.
When they aren't hiding behind their appearance of public service,
when they aren't hiding behind their suits and briefcases in our legislature,
they are effectively looting us like pirates, and
they are getting their own reward for it.
Here is the latest story, the most recently available information on the departure of McDonald's from ALEC membership. It is informative specifically because it represents an effort to distance the corporate interest from the ultra-conservative agenda which is part of the seduction of the legislators side of membership in ALEC. It is in part the darkly secretive nature of ALEC which is the opposite of honest and transparent government. It is one thing to have conferences and committee meetings within legislatures behind closed doors in an effort to avoid them becoming a circus, in the interests of simple efficiency. But those are meetings where the members of the legislature from all parties have equal access to information, and to the process. All the parties participating are KNOWN. The benefits if any they receive for their position are known and above board, and the identity of those who provide benefits are known, including donors. There is accountability.
None of those things are true of meetings with exclusively conservative legislators meeting outside of the halls of government in secret, for a variety of benefits from campaign donations to the expenditure of PAC money.
There are increased profits to those corporations and other special interests. They get money out of this above and beyond what they put into ALEC, and PACs, and donations to campaigns. They get legislation that benefits them --- and harms US. It is a corrupt arrangement of greed.
From the Huff Po:
McDonald's Says It Left ALEC In March 2012 [UPDATE]
Under pressure from a progressive campaign to abandon the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), McDonald's is insisting that it left the controversial conservative organization in March.
On Tuesday, the online advocacy group Color of Change called on the fast-food chain to withdraw its membership from the group due to its support for voter ID and "Stand Your Ground" gun laws. In response, McDonald's said that it had already done so.
"We’re trying to correct the misinformation. We were a member last year and made the business decision not to renew in 2012," McDonald's spokesperson Ashlee Yingling wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "Unfortunately, information found on many websites is outdated."
However, a letter sent by McDonald's to Color of Change, dated February 29, 2012, defended the corporation's membership in the group.
"McDonald's is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)," it reads. "It is important to note that while McDonald's is a member of ALEC's Commerce Committee, we are not a member of ALEC's Private Enterprise Board which recently passed the "Voter ID" model legislation."
In response to HuffPost's request for clarification, Yingling said that the company’s decision to separate from ALEC was in fact made in March 2012.
Color of Change has led a public campaign that aims to get ALEC's members to withdraw. The group supports controversial "policies that limit voting rights, undermine our public schools, assault collective bargaining and weaken laws protecting our environment,” said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, a progressive group also involved in the campaign.
Coca-Cola withdrew its membership April 5. A day later Kraft Foods Inc announced it would not renew its membership to ALEC when it expires this spring.
Campaigns to persuade corporations to end support for the conservative organization had foundered until the Trayvon Martin killing. George Zimmerman, the man who shot the 17-year-old boy, has not been charged yet because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law," which ALEC championed. For much of corporate America, apparently, that's a bridge too far.
Color of Change's press release that named McDonald's as an ALEC member also called out State Farm and Johnson & Johnson for their memberships. State Farm and Johnson & Johnson did not respond to The Huffington Post's requests for comment.
As of Thursday, HuffPost had confirmed that Pfizer, Bayer, American Bail Coalition, PhRMA and Reynolds American would all continue their memberships in ALEC.
(large type is my emphasis added - DG)
