This afternoon, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson announced that it will be leaving the corporate front group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC): “We have been in dialogue with ALEC for some time, and while we acknowledge ALEC’s recent decision to focus only on innovation and growth-supporting policies, we have decided to suspend our participation
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Last year, Politico noted that News America/Fox PAC, Political Action Committee of Fox News parent company News Corporation, was slowing down in donations, possibly thanks to overseas scandals. Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time obtained an invitation to Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) “11th Annual Crawfish Fest,” a large fundraiser she puts on. The invitation lists News America/Fox PAC as a
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Corporate front group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has faced increasing scrutiny for secretly passing off corporate-written laws to state legislatures, including the controversial Stand Your Ground gun law. Late last night, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer and biggest seller of firearms in the country, announced it was suspending its membership in ALEC,
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The corporate front group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has come under increasing fire for secretly passing off corporate-written legislation to state legislatures. Yesterday, the medical device company Medtronic announced that it chose not to renew its membership in ALEC in 2010. Medtronic joins companies including Scantron, which announced earlier this week it was leaving ALEC, as well
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Today, at Amazon.com’s shareholder meeting in Seattle, organizers from groups including Color of Change, CREDO, People for the American Way, and Working Washington delivered petition signatures from over half a million people calling on Amazon.com and other corporations to stop funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate front group responsible for pushing an
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We’ve just received word from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee — which has been campaigning to get Democratic Party lawmakers to quit the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — that an additional eleven Democrats have now left the corporate front group . Here are the eleven who have announced they will be leaving: – 8 Pennsylvannia legislators: Sen.
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Today, Bank of America held its annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. As hundreds protested the bank’s heavy-handed political giving outside, a group of shareholders inside voted on various resolutions. Charlotte Observer business reporter Andrew Dunn notes that all shareholder resolutions failed. But a resolution calling on the company to disclose more about its
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One way to tackle Big Money’s role in the political system would be to better regulate corporate political spending. Right now, big corporations can engage in widespread political spending and hide much of it behind opaque bureaucracy. Activists are calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue rules that would govern this spending. One
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