Thread by @doctorow

The American Legislative Exchange Council (@ALEC_states) solicits fortunes from corporate donors, then produces "model legislation" that formalizes corruption and impunity for companies and lobbies states to adopt it.

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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/09/03/kin…

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For years, companies that prided themselves on their progressive public image got a pass for their involvement with ALEC.

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Somehow, Apple, Amazon, the Gates Foundation and others could promote "conscious capitalism" while backing stand your ground laws, ag-gag laws, homophobia, immigration bans, anti-public-education campaigns, tobacco-cancer denial.

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And a suite of energy policies with three pillars: pro-fracking, pro-pollution and anti-solar.

But the Trump years - where it pushed hard for the Trump agenda - provoked a reckoning for ALEC and members have been bailing on it.

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It was particularly wounded by a divestiture campaign citing ALEC's work on voter-suppression laws. ALEC's CEO @Lisabnelson published editorials and sent desperate letters to her funders denying that ALEC had any involvement with voter suppression.

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/…

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"ALEC does not create or promote policy models on election reform/security."

She lied.

ALEC has done extensive voter suppression work (of course they have), but they did it through a cut-out, the dark money-funded Honest Elections Project.

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As Nelson told an audience of swivel-eyed right wing neo-Birchers, she and her group outsourced their voter-suppression work to Honest Elections, working "through them" to develop a "model policy" on voter suppression.

sourcewatch.org/index.php?titl…

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100 of the top ALEC-affiliated GOP state legislators have sponsored voter suppression laws.

exposedbycmd.org/2021/04/13/ale…

Heritage Action for America's leaked $24m voter suppression plan reveals its strategic partnership with ALEC:

sourcewatch.org/index.php?titl…

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As @duboo writes in @theprospect, Nelson's remarks leave no doubt as to her organization's voter suppression plans: "Remember, it is only about 10 or 11 states that need to be focused very heavily on what their election reform efforts look like..."

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Nelson's desperate lies notwithstanding, it's clear that ALEC is in the voter suppression business. Their remaining members should be on notice that the days of giving corporations a pass on their ALEC membership are done.

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