Ditch ALEC

For those who ponder why so many states seem to take on an issue simultaneously, ponder no longer.

ALEC aka American Legislative Exchange Council is a corporate funded group that funds and shoves extremist right-wing issues down our throats.  Stand Your Ground laws, turning public lands over to corporations and supporting efforts to suppress voting (including the reduction of early voting days) are a few examples of the group's influence over state legislators.

The Bismark Tribune:

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ALEC brings together state and federal lawmakers, who pay $100 for a two-year membership, and corporations, which pay between $2,500 and $25,000 for an annual membership. The legislators and corporate representatives draft templates of legislation that can be used by lawmakers and lobbyists as models for state or federal legislation.

Meaning, legislators are mere puppets of ALEC. That atrocity-- in tandem with the SCOTUS 2010 Citizens United decision permitting super PACs to saturate campaigns with huge contributions--simply vaporizes the voice of the American individual.

It appears the American individual has had enough.

Facing threat of boycott by the American public and likely skittish of the outrage following the Trayvon Martin shooting, two corporate members of ALEC have dropped membership in the organization

Coke has called it quits as well as Kraft.  Pepsi jumped ship in January.

AT&T, Bayer, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson &Johnson, Koch Industries, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance, UPS and Wal-Mart Stores all remain members.  Read here for a complete list, which sadly includes one of my go-to companies, Amazon.com.

It's time these companies left ALEC as well.

You can help.  Sign the petition here.

And take note of companies that continue to align with such a destructive organization.

Like Amazon.com.