Thread by @ExposingALEC

#ALEC ATTACKS - How evangelicals and corporations captured state lawmaking to safeguard white supremacy and corporate power alecattacks.org #KochNetwork

A report from the Center for Constitutional Rights, Dream Defenders, Palestine Legal, The Red Nation, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights re #ALEC #KochNetwork

In 2012, 17-year-old Black teenager Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman near his father’s home in Florida. One year after his death, a jury found his killer not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, citing Florida’s #standyourground law.

A 2013 study found that in stand your ground states, a judge is 12 times more likely to rule a white-on-Black shooting “justified” than a Black-on-white shooting.

Stand your ground laws establish the right of a person to defend one’s self against threats (or perceived threats), including the application of lethal force, regardless of whether safely retreating from the situation might have been possible.

In 2005 Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed into law the first stand your ground law, SB 436. The bill was drafted by the #NRA and sponsored by #ALEC members, state Representative Dennis Baxley and State Senator Durell Peadon.

Between 2005 and 2014, monthly rates of homicide by firearm increased by 31.6%, despite there being no increase in states without a stand your ground law.

27 states now have laws that have similar legal effect as the law that was first developed in Florida.

35 states now have some form of #voterID law in effect

#NorthCarolina’s voter ID law was specifically designed to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision”
— U.S. Court of Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit.

Voter ID laws are deliberately discriminatory. Up to 25% of African-American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to 8% of whites.

“I want to see my vote counted. Let me be there. I wanna be there. I want to see that.”
-78 year-old Alberta Currie, a Black woman from Hope Mills, North Carolina, told a reporter in 2013

Supporters of #VoterID claim that obtaining an ID needed for voting is free. It is not. It costs between $75-175.

35 states now have some form of voter ID law in effect

2016: Standing Rock Sioux Nation resists construction of Dakota Access Pipeline through land covered by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The original route was changed to safeguard water supplies for a nearby majority-white town. #NoDAPL

“The Dakota Access Pipeline protests are the main reason behind this [critical infrastructure] law.” -- Rep. Scott Biggs, Oklahoma lawmaker justifying new law to punish water protectors

Changes in the North Dakota Law Carry Serious Penalties $10,000 and 5 Years in jail: Max penalty for individuals “damaging”, “interfering” or “tampering” with critical infrastructure $100,000 and 5 Years in jail: Max penalty for organizations “conspiring” with an individual...

Since 2011, two corporations that own Bayou Bridge Pipeline gave $54,851 to 65 elected representatives who passed the critical infrastructure bill in Louisiana.

Since #NoDAPL in 2016, 11 ALEC-affiliated lawmakers have been lead sponsors on critical infrastructure bills that passed into law in North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

The goal of this unconstitutional law is to further corporate interests and silence Indigenous and allied non-Indigenous communities. ALEC and its ‘Big Oil’ partners can try to use pay-to-play politics to silence us, but we will fight this on the front lines and in the courts.