ALEC: Ditched by Coke, Pepsi, & Kraft

A message from PFAW:  

You know about ALEC -- the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council; the group behind some of the country’s most notorious right-wing state legislation like Florida’s “shoot first/stand your ground” law, Arizona’s infamous “show me your papers” immigration bill and Voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising minority and young voters in many states.

PFAW has been tracking and exposing ALEC’s influence for many years. Now, we’re working to pressure the companies that are part of ALEC to sever their ties with the group. And it’s already working, with Coca Cola announcing it will disassociate with ALEC yesterday and Pepsi Co. following suit this morning.

Help us drain ALEC of more of its corporate backing.Sign our petition  to ALEC’s member companies urging them to cut ties with the recklessly right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council.

The Koch brothers and other overtly ideological funders of ALEC have a stake in ALEC’s political agenda. Likewise, certain industries are behind ALEC’s specific legislative efforts. For example, gun manufacturers and the NRA push for “stand your ground” type laws, Arizona’s immigration bill had the support of the private prison industry and, obviously, Big Oil and other corporate polluters have a stake in weakening environmental protections. But every company that’s part of ALEC should be held directly accountable for the destructive laws ALEC pushes, even if those laws are not connected to a company’s own corporate agenda.

Coca Cola’s statement said:

“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.”

All companies who have supported ALEC should now take this approach. We need to build pressure on companies and let them know that good corporate citizenship means not helping to fund the organization that has helped spread the passage of laws like the Florida “shoot first” law implicated in the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, or the Jim Crow-style voter suppression laws that deny blacks, Latinos, students and low-income people their right to vote.

Help us turn support of ALEC into a liability for companies. Please join our petition now and help us defund ALEC’s right-wing agenda.

Thank you for being part of this new and important consumer grassroots movement. After you take action, please help build the movement by sharing the petition and asking others to sign.

Sincerely,

Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

P.S. By getting companies to remove their support for and participation in ALEC, you’ll be helping to get corporate money out of politics and policy making. Please take this urgent action and sign the petition now.




Update: Our efforts are really working! Just last night, Kraft Foods announced it will be joining Coca Cola and Pepsi and will be LEAVING the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Please join the 45,000 activists who have already signed PFAW’s petition since yesterday urging companies to cut ties with ALEC.

Every corporate sponsor of ALEC, whether they have a stake in ALEC’s overtly right-wing agenda or not, is complicit in the passage of ALEC-promoted voter suppression laws and the NRA-drafted “stand your ground laws” that ALEC pushes across the country.

Let the companies know that if they continue to support ALEC, they’ll be held accountable.

-- Ben

P.S. Our friends at Color of Change have done a great service in kicking off this effort. Many of ALEC’s member companies market their products specifically to the African American community, for which Color of Change advocates, and then support an organization -- ALEC -- that promotes laws to disenfranchise African Americans, taking their money during the day and then working to attack their rights by night.

This dynamic is also evident with ALEC member companies that market their products to Latinos and to young people, while ALEC works to suppress those communities’ votes as well. We have more companies we’ll be targeting -- giving them a chance to sever their ties with ALEC or be held accountable. Please join this important effort now.

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