It’s been a monumental week for our campaign to end corporate sponsorship for the right-wing group ALEC. Three of the country’s biggest tech companies – Google, Yahoo! and Yelp – announced plans to end their ALEC membership, with tech titan Facebook stating that it is "not likely to renew membership." Google was the first to make the announcement on Monday when Eric Schmidt told NPR that the tech giant’s relationship with ALEC had been "some sort of mistake."
Wednesday brought a triple blow to ALEC’s corporate sponsorship, with Yahoo! and Yelp both announcing plans to terminate their relationship with ALEC, and Facebook stating that it would likely follow suit. Not only are ALEC’s latest defectors some of the world’s biggest tech innovators – they are some of the country’s most profitable companies, with both Google and Facebook listed in Fortune 500.
This week’s "tech exodus" comes on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement earlier this summer that it would not renew its ALEC membership.
ALEC is a key voice for corporate special interests in state legislatures across the country. The group works to connect right-wing legislatures with corporate lobbyists, and is responsible for some of the country’s worst anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-voter legislation. ALEC has helped create laws that harm consumers, endanger individuals, and deny the constitutional rights of millions. In addition to pushing legislation that discriminates against minority voters and protects corporate polluters, ALEC is notorious for its history of working with the NRA to aggressively spread passage of “Stand Your Ground” laws, which encourage dangerous vigilantism and were implicated in the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
PFAW, along with allies including Color of Change, Center for Media and Democracy, and Common Cause, has spearheaded the campaign to urge ALEC's corporate sponsors to end their membership. To date, nearly 150,000 PFAW activists to date have taken action to put pressure on consumer brand companies to cut ties with ALEC. The momentum created by this week’s "tech exodus" is an opportunity to pressure ALEC’s remaining sponsors to follow suit. Sign our petition now – and share it with others – urging these companies to separate themselves from ALEC’s extreme and reckless agenda.