CMD in The American Prospect The American Prospect featured a story by CMD's Arn Pearson and David Armiak about the destructive agenda ALEC has been pushing for the last 50 years. If there’s one story you should read about ALEC’s 50th anniversary this week, this is it. “ALEC’s agenda extends to almost every area of public policy, as lawmakers take these model bills written by powerful special-interest and far-right groups — including the tobacco, gun, oil, pharmaceutical, and telecom industries — back to their statehouses and introduce them as their own. From lower wages to increased mass shootings, more pollution, fewer consumer protections, and less bodily autonomy, the negative impacts on everyone living in the U.S. have been profound,” Pearson and Armiak write. “And since ALEC masquerades as a tax-exempt charity, your tax dollars subsidize it all." You can read the full story here. | |
ALEC’s #50YearsofHarm On Wednesday, ALEC held its ritzy 50th Anniversary Gala at Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery. Progressive groups coordinated a protest drawing attention to ALEC’s #50YearsofHarm and launched a new petition calling on corporations to stop funding ALEC’s extreme agenda. “Thanks to pressure from people like you, more than 100 major corporations have dumped ALEC – including Google, Coca-Cola, and AT&T – but many more keep funding its harmful operations, even when that conflicts with the pro-environment, pro-civil rights values the corporations claim to support,” the petition says. You can sign-on to the petition here. ALEC’s Long History with Big Tobacco This week, CMD’s Investigative Reporter Juliana Broad discussed Big Tobacco’s deep entanglement with ALEC at a panel hosted by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). You can watch a recording of the panel discussion on ASH’s YouTube channel and view the presenters’ compiled slides here. | |
ICYMI: CMD’s Research In case you’ve missed it, here’s what we’ve been working on. | |
