Member-only story
ALEC pushed voter suppression bills
And then lied about it.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) solicits fortunes from corporate donors, then produces “model legislation” that formalizes corruption and impunity for companies and lobbies states to adopt it.
For years, companies that prided themselves on their progressive public image got a pass for their involvement with ALEC.
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.
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.
It was particularly wounded by a divestiture campaign citing ALEC’s work on voter-suppression laws. ALEC’s CEO Lisa Nelson published editorials and sent desperate letters to her funders denying that ALEC had any involvement with voter suppression.
