John, 12 years ago, a whistleblower alerted us to an organization pushing extreme legislation through states across the country.
From this leak, we helped expose how companies like Google and Coca-Cola were pouring money into a secretive group that was responsible for extreme legislation like Stand Your Ground gun laws, racially discriminatory voter ID, rollbacks of environmental protection, and blocking the Affordable Care Act at the state level.
I’m talking about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – a group of corporate lobbyists funded by big corporations and a handful of wealthy families working to ram far-right legislation through states.
ALEC pays top dollar for direct access to lawmakers, and creates ALEC “model bills” that serve the ultra wealthy at the expense of people like you and me. Then, ALEC backed legislators take the model bills and present them in their states’ legislative sessions – passing off the work as their own.
Let’s put this simply: ALEC is undermining our democracy by drowning out the voices of The People in favor of corporations.
As the People’s Lobby, Common Cause wasn’t going to let this stand. We immediately got to work and used this whistleblower’s leak to launch a public pressure campaign that eventually forced some of ALEC’s biggest funders – like Google, Coca-Cola, and AT&T – to cut ties with the extreme organization.
And our work to stop ALEC at every turn hasn’t stopped.
John, I’m not going to rest until each and every corporate ALEC member leaves the organization for GOOD. But as I write you, companies like UPS and State Farm Insurance continue to fund ALEC’s self-serving agenda.
Here’s the issue: we’re working off of information that’s 12 years old. That means we might not even know who ALEC’s biggest funders are today.
ALEC’s strength lies in its secrecy. Even with the whistleblower’s leak, we still know so little about how the organization operates. Your very own legislator might even be a part of it!
That’s why our strategy to stop ALEC involves uncovering its funders and bringing its operations out of the shadows and into the public eye.
And it’s working – corporations don’t want their customers to know what kind of extreme agenda they’re supporting behind closed doors. Once we got names out into the spotlight, we saw a mass exodus from ALEC’s brand – with funders cutting ties with the organization in an attempt to save face.
We need to uncover who ALEC’s remaining funders are and ramp up our public pressure campaign.
But I know this won’t be easy. ALEC has been operating in secrecy for so long, and they’re good at it. We’re going to need an influx of resources to fund our investigation into ALEC’s top funders. I’m writing to you today to ask if I can count on your support.
John, this fall is ALEC’s 50th anniversary. And I can’t think of a better anniversary present than shutting down the corrupt organization for good.
Will you rush a contribution of $3 or more today and shut down ALEC for good?
I’m ready to pressure each and every one of ALEC’s corporate members until they cut ties with the organization. But I have to be honest, this is a huge undertaking – and it’s only possible if I know I have the support of Common Cause members like you.
Please let me know I can count on you to step up today.
Thank you,
Viki Harrison, Director of Constitutional Convention & Protect Dissent Programs
and the team at Common Cause
