The list of major corporations severing ties with right-wing public policy group American Legislative Exchange Council continues to grow with Thursday's announcement that General Motors and Walgreen Co. have dropped their memberships, according to reports.
ALEC, which engineered or supported controversial “stand your ground" gun laws and sweeping voter ID requirements that threaten to disenfranchise minority voters, has come under increasing scrutiny by civil rights organizations since the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in February highlighted how the group strayed from its original pro-business agenda.
“We routinely evaluate our support for a variety of organizations,” said Greg Martin, a GM spokesman, according to Bloomberg. “As such, we have decided to discontinue our support and funding of ALEC.”
“We recently informed ALEC that, effective immediately, Walgreen Co. will not be renewing its membership in their organization,” said James Graham, a spokesman for the drug store chain.
In recent weeks, Best Buy and CVS Caremark also cut ties with ALEC. A CVS spokeswoman said on July 10 that the company had closely been following issues surrounding ALEC and "have heard from numerous stakeholders expressing their views."
“As a result, after careful consideration of the available information, CVS Caremark has discontinued its membership in ALEC,” a spokeswoman told Bloomberg Businessweek.
News of GM's and Walgreen's departures comes as ALEC holds its annual meeting in Salt Lake City, where on Wednesday a group of activist organizations including Alliance for a Better Utah, Center for Media and Democracy, Common Cause and People for the American Way released a 45-page report detailing "the recent history of ALEC's corruptive influence in the Utah legislature."
Oh, darn... Two more MAJOR corporations have dropped the right-wing group ALEC over "stand your ground"-laws and voter-suppression.... What is a right-wing organization to do? The poor Koch Brothers must be beside themselves... (Oh, wait...they are....)
