This article was first published by CMD at PRWatch.org.

Wal-Mart, a member of ALEC’s corporate “Private Enterprise” board and of the Public Safety and Elections Task Force that adopted Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” as a “model” bill, announced yesterday that it is “suspending” its ALEC membership.

Protesters including Rev. Billy at Walmart. Photo by Brave New Films.

“We feel that the divide between these activities and our purpose as a business has become too wide. To that end, we are suspending our membership in ALEC,” Wal-Mart vice president of public affairs and government relations, Maggie Sans, told Reuters. Sans is stepping down as secretary of ALEC’s corporate board.

The Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) Executive Director, Lisa Graves, applauded Wal-Mart “for doing the right thing in leaving ALEC, especially in the wake of newly emerged information showing how ALEC has been skirting federal and state lobbying and ethics laws.” She added that “this is a very positive step for Wal-Mart,” a long-time leader and funder of ALEC’s operations, and “it also shows that the excellent work of advocates to shine a light on ALEC’s extreme agenda is having a major impact.”

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world as well as the largest retailer of firearms in the United States. It had $421.8 billion in sales in 2011, edging out Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP — all of which are still ALEC member companies — for the most revenue, according to CNN.

Wal-Mart’s History of Involvement with ALEC

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This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org.

With thousands of consumers expressing their concerns about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to corporations across America, even former supporters of ALEC are feeling the heat, and some are rushing to distance themselves from the organization. YUM! Brands (owners of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) became the 12th corporate member of ALEC to announce it is leaving the organization yesterday.

When the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released the ALEC Exposed website in 2011, staff worked to document and footnote every ALEC corporate member or supporter and former corporate member or supporter possible. CMD’s extensive footnoted list has been cited by news sources and campaigners across the country, although no one knows all the corporations that have funded or helped lead ALEC in its nearly 40-year history. CMD has listed the following organizations as known former ALEC members or supporters on its website, SourceWatch.org, and these companies have taken steps to make sure the public knows they are not currently supporting ALEC:

Cargill: An ALEC brochure from its 1998 annual meeting in Chicago lists Cargill, Inc. as a new ALEC member and a “Director” level sponsor of the meeting. (In 2010, a “Director” level sponsor would pay $10,000 to ALEC, but it is unknown how much a corporation would have paid in 1998.) On April 17, a representative from the Cargill corporate affairs office contacted CMD to say that the company is not a member of ALEC and that it has no internal records of ever having been a member of ALEC. The spokesperson told CMD that she had even talked to lobbyists from 1998. The document search was prompted by press and public inquiries. ALEC is a hot topic in Minnesota due to Governor Mark Dayton’s veto of seven ALEC-supported bills this session.

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This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org.

Shortly after issuing a press release announcing that it was disbanding its “Public Safety and Elections Task Force” after 30 years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held a training for the right-wing blogosphere.

ALEC Director of External Relations Caitlyn Korb spoke yesterday at a Heritage Foundation “Bloggers Briefing,” begging conservative bloggers for help while prepping “a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do.” Korb appears to be a new ALEC employee who recently worked for the Cato Institute. Both ALEC and Cato have received funding from Koch family foundations. The Heritage Foundation is an ALEC member.

The “Bloggers Briefing,” which was started by Heritage’s Rob Bluey and “a dozen conservative online entrepreneurs” six years ago, was broadcast online on “Breitbart TV,” a project of the late Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart’s team of bloggers and apparatchiks most recently gained notoriety for getting U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod fired. Breitbart released a clip of a speech given by Sherrod deliberately edited to create the false impression that she was prejudiced against white farmers. Her actual speech was a personal tale rejecting prejudice. Sherrod was later offered resinstatement by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, with apologies.

“We Haven’t Been the Subject of Many Headlines”

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This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org.

The seventh and eighth corporations to publicly state that they cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are candy-maker Mars and the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), Arizona’s largest electric utility. Mars had been an exhibitor at ALEC’s 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans. Mars is the maker of Skittles, the snack Trayvon Martin had purchased before he was shot by George Zimmerman, whose arrest was delayed due to an NRA-backed gun law that became an ALEC “model” bill.

APS had been a member of ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, which adopted such “model” bills as the “State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Initiatives Act” and the “State Data Quality Act.” News of it breaking ties with ALEC comes on the heels of a new updated report on ALEC in Arizona published by People for the American Way, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Common Cause and ProgressNow.

Mars announced in an email to reporters, “Earlier this year, Mars, Incorporated reviewed all of its trade associations and sponsorships and decided not to renew the ALEC membership in 2012.” APS’ pledge not to renew its ALEC membership was announced today in the Arizona Capital Times. Color of Change has been urging a number of companies like Mars to leave ALEC, and today applauded the companies’ decisions to “place the integrity of their brands above association with a shadowy policy group.”

Mars and APS join Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, Intuit, McDonald’s and Wendy’s in their decision to distance themselves from ALEC’s extreme agenda.

CMD has asked supporters to send letters to ALEC corporate leaders asking them to cut ties with ALEC in the wake of the tragic shooting of Martin, a Florida high school student. Concerned citizens can click here to tell ALEC companies to stand down.

This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org. CMD also released the ALECexposed.org project in 2011, exposing the “model” legislation created behind closed doors by corporations working with state legislators in the American Legislative Exchange Council. This project has received the Sidney Award and the Izzy Award.

About the Author: Rebekah Wilce has a degree in writing from the University of Arizona. She is the lead writer for CMD’s Food Rights Network, with expertise in food and agriculture issues.

This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org.

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.

Multinational food and beverage conglomerate 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.

Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further. According to Reuters, Kraft’s emailed statement explained, “Our membership in ALEC expires this spring and for a number of reasons, including limited resources, we have made the decision not to renew.”

Other Corporations Refuse to Stand Down

Other corporate board members are doubling down, most notably Koch Industries and Wal-Mart Stores. “Yes, we plan to continue our membership in and support of ALEC,” Philip Ellender of Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC told Politico. Wal-Mart refused to withdraw its support of ALEC, claiming, “Our membership in any organization does not affirm our agreement with each policy created by the broader group.”

At what Reuters has called “political risk,” Pfizer, Reynolds American, Altria/Philip Morris and non-board ALEC member Procter & Gamble refuse to leave ALEC. Exxon Mobil and British alcohol firm Diageo (makers of Smirnoff products and Johnnie Walker whisky) declined to comment.

Pfizer, the world largest drug manufacturer, whose mission is “applying science and our global resources to improve health and well-being at every stage of life,” said, “We don’t agree with every ALEC position, but we participate in ALEC’s healthcare forums because state legislators that are the members in ALEC, they make decisions that impact our business and the country’s business every day.”

Reynolds, which makes Camel cigarettes and calls itself “the innovative tobacco company totally committed to building value through responsible growth,” said ALEC provides “a valuable forum for sharing of ideas and fostering better understanding of a broad range of both legislative and business issues.”[cont.] Read the rest of this entry →