By DAVID FIRESTONE
It's not often that a grassroots campaign against a well-funded
business organization actually works. But that may have happened
today. The American Legislative Exchange Council – responsible for
spreading "stand-your-ground" laws and voter ID restrictions to dozens
of states around the country –announced that it will disband its
Public Safety and Elections Task Force, the internal panel that was
the impetus for those kinds of laws. ALEC will now concentrate on
economic issues.
The announcement didn't say so, but the move was clearly a reaction to
the steady stream of corporate defections from ALEC by prominent
businesses that depend on consumer goodwill. In the last few months,
since liberal groups began pointing out the council's role in helping
disenfranchise millions of low-income and minority voters through
voter ID requirements, ALEC has lost funding from companies such as
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Wendy's, and Intuit.
The exodus accelerated when it became clear ALEC had helped implement
Florida's stand-your-ground law in 24 other states, through
conservative lawmakers who are affiliated with the group. The law
allows people to attack a perceived assailant if they believe they are
in imminent danger, without having to retreat, and was originally
pushed by the National Rifle Association, a longtime ALEC member.
Kaitlyn Buss, a spokeswoman for ALEC, said the group would no longer
work on issues relating to elections or guns. Given the controversy
surrounding those issues, she said, ALEC's legislative board had
decided to focus purely on issues such as taxes, fiscal policy, and
tort reform.
Writing prototypes of state laws in those areas could still do a great
deal of harm, reducing the power of public and private unions,
fighting minimum wage laws and tax increases on the rich, and
repealing environmental regulations.
But corporations sent a clear message to the right wing that they did
not want to be associated with laws that diminish democracy and anger
police departments. The question now is when state lawmakers, too many
of whom seem to take their directions from ALEC, will learn the same
lesson.
More:
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/alec-backs-down/?ref=opinion
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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