Surprise, surprise: major corporate sponsors are fleeing ALEC, that nefarious corporate-funded front group created to ram industry-friendly laws through state legislatures around the country. CocaCola, PepsiCo, Intuit, Kraft Foods and now McDonald’s and Wendy’s have announced they are not renewing their memberships. Furthermore, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave ALEC a $375,000 grant for educational initiatives, says it will not make any more grants to the organization.
ALEC claims over 300 corporate sponsors, so I’m sure the loss of five or six big guns isn’t that big a deal. But I wonder if we aren’t seeing a trend, fueled by the explosion in internet activism and social media. It’s only a matter of time before other major players realize ALEC ain’t worth the hassle and bad PR.
And it’s not just ALEC. Over the past few years we’ve seen Apple, Exelon, Duke Energy and others leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its climate change denialism. General Motors just pulled the plug on its involvement in The Heartland Institute. GE has publicly rebuked the Republican Party over green initiatives and climate change.
All of this strikes me as completely predictable. Honestly, I do not get the point of these broad, corporate front groups like ALEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They seem antithetical to capitalism. These are not trade groups, promoting the common interests of businesses within the same industry. Their members often have competing interests, even contradictory ones. As groups like ALEC push ever more radical policies, conflicts have become inevitable. You can’t be an ALEC member like McDonald’s or CocaCola, which market heavily to African American consumers, and not expect ALEC’s voter disenfranchisement activities to go unnoticed by the very consumers you’re trying to reach. You can’t be a company like GM, investing millions in bringing the Chevy Volt to market, or Nissan USA with its Leaf, and not expect to butt heads with the brick wall that is ExxonMobil’s funding of climate denialism.
Or, as we’re seeing with Tennessee’s ALEC-written guns-in-parking-lots bill:
The votes set the course for a high-stakes challenge pitting gun rights groups against business groups next week. Such a conflict could split the legislature’s Republican majority with a late-session fight between two of its main supporters.
Hmm, well nobody could have predicted that. There may be some things that corporations can universally agree on — lower corporate tax rates, for example. But as ALEC and the Chamber wade into the weeds of extremist ideology, they’re alienating some of their biggest corporate supporters, whose profits depend on being a little less reactionary and appealing to a broad range of consumers.
[UPDATE]:
[UPDATE] 2:
Add Mars Inc. and Arizona Public Service to the list of companies leaving ALEC.
Southern Beale 
I dunno, I always assumed that the current batch of extremists would take the side of guns and murder over businesses. It’s like Romney versus every other candidate. Romney just wants to help out his wealthy buddies while the other guys want to promote hatred and violence.
And Romney will promote hatred and violencer to help out his wealthy buddies.
When you have no scruples, there is no such thing as, “going too far”.
I say, let the Republicans meet in the legislative parking lot and shoot it out.
Honestly, I do not get the point of these broad, corporate front groups like ALEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They seem antithetical to capitalism.
We do not have capitalism. We have corporatism, which is quite a different thing. The point is power – concentrated in the hands of an elite oligarchy. Corporate shills are their minions.
WASF!
JzB
Bummer for the Kochsuckers; they’ll have to cut back on their other politibuys to offset their increased contributions to ALEC.