John, what do UPS and former President George W. Bush have in common?
They’re both involved with ALEC – a secretive group that pushes extreme legislation like Stand Your Ground gun laws behind closed doors.
ALEC is the acronym for the American Legislative Exchange Council – a group of corporate lobbyists, funded by big corporations and a handful of wealthy families working to ram far-right legislation through state legislatures.
ALEC is responsible for some of the most extreme ultra-conservative laws passed in the last decade. In addition to pushing extreme gun legislation, we have ALEC to thank for racially discriminatory strict voter photo ID laws, rollbacks of environmental protection, and blocking the Affordable Care Act at the state level.
As I write, ALEC is hard at work trying to push even more extreme legislation through states across the country. Stifling the right to peaceful protest. Advancing a dangerous Article V Constitutional Convention. Enacting more barriers to vote.
ALEC’s member corporations pay top dollar for direct access to state lawmakers – who allow lobbyists to write corporate dream legislation into ALEC “model bills.” Then, ALEC-backed legislators rush those bills through their state houses, churning out laws that enrich corporations and hurt the rest of us.
But John, we have a plan to stop ALEC – and it’s working. You see, major companies don’t want to be publicly associated with ALEC’s overwhelmingly unpopular, extreme agenda. And up until very recently, ALEC has been able to operate from the shadows – quietly pulling the strings to advance their right wing policies.
But in the past few years, peoples’ groups like Common Cause have exposed ALEC for what it is – and put MAJOR pressure on companies to cut ties with them.
Already, three of ALEC’s biggest funders, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, responded to our demands by canceling their ALEC membership. They joined Google, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, and other major companies in an unprecedented exodus from ALEC’s toxic brand.
Now, as we’re planning our strategy to STOP ALEC, I’m asking every Common Cause member to chip in – and make an investment in our plan that could shut them out for good.
We’re ready to pressure each ALEC corporate member, one-by-one, until they cut this with this extreme right-wing lobby group – and step up to defend our civil rights, voting rights, and every other right you and I hold dear.
And if you donate before our final end-of-fiscal-year budget deadline on June 30th, we’ll match your gift dollar-for-dollar – up to $100,000 so you can have double the impact.
Will you chip in $3 or more before our budget deadline and EXPOSE ALEC? Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar!
I’ve seen it firsthand: Our strategy hits ALEC where it hurts. They don’t have grassroots members, and don’t represent anyone besides major corporations – so if we keep making clear to corporations and their customers what sort of extreme agenda they’re backing and the public disgust that goes along with it, ALEC loses its power..
AND… it’s clear they’re running scared. ALEC has threatened Common Cause and our coalition partners with legal action multiple times. But all we’re doing is putting ALEC’s extreme agenda out in the open and letting it speak for itself – which is a truth they can’t keep hiding from.
Despite all this, major companies like State Farm Insurance and Anheuser-Busch continue to support ALEC. We need your help to expose their involvement and hold them accountable along with other companies that bankroll ALEC’s attacks on our democracy.
You can make a major difference right now by making a matched gift and holding ALEC companies accountable >>
Thank you for your support,
Viki Harrison, Director of Constitutional Convention & Protect Dissent Program
and the team at Common Cause
