The War on ALEC

I admit that I probably should have written about this long ago, but it remains a highly salient issue. For months the far left has been waging a campaign to destroy the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has only intensified in the wake of the Trayvon Martin Shooting.  ALEC is a private-public partnership of state legislators and businesses that seek to expand the principles of limited government, free markets, and economic liberty.  Left wing hatred towards the organization for advocating and promoting these principles has been a long standing tradition, but it seems the political left is taking a more aggressive approach against ALEC.    Yesterday, The Washington Free Beacon reported that liberal elements are preparing for war against ALEC.

The participants, including representatives from such far-left groups as Common Cause, Color of Change, and ProgressNow, met for lunch in a conference room at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. The New Organizing Institute, a group that provides support and technology for political organizers, sponsored the forum. Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase, said Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado, summing up the strategy.

One of the groups that attempted to forge a connection between ALEC and the Trayvon Martin shooting is Color of Change, a nonprofit founded by 9/11 Truther and former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones.

Color of Change Director of Strategy,Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte, has already started a phone banking and online petitioning campaign against companies associated with ALEC and companies like Amazon.com, State Farm, Johnson & Johnson, and AT&T are included on their hit list.

With the launch of ALEC Exposed nine months ago, the site has detailed some 800 bills and thousands of internal documents from the organization that includes two years worth of ALEC meetings, their attendee lists and the accompanying minutes due to Common Cause’s successful Freedom of Information Act request from state legislators.  Common Cause is “a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.”  However, as Jason Stverak, President of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, wrote on Breitbart, it’s a progressive organization funded by billionaire lefty George Soros.  Seeing that ALEC was involved in crafting Voter ID legislation, Stand Your Ground Laws, Alabama’s “Papers Please” immigration policy, and Wisconsin’s revamp of collective bargaining rights, it is hardly a surprise why the left wants them gone and think they’re evil.  It’s “the vast right wing conspiracy.”

To no one’s surprise, the liberal media, including far left publications like The Nation and The Huffington re-Post, released hit pieces last summer exposing this “shadowy” organization, but it was really the Trayvon shooting that galavanized this campaign to heavily marginalize ALEC’s agenda and, therefore, our fight for economic freedom and limited government.  So far, the political left has been able to force The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Coca-Cola to drop their support of ALEC and the organization itself states it will double down on “jobs, free markets, and growth” and announced the end of their task force that dealt with non economic issues.  Hence, this means that ALEC has caved to left-wing pressure and, as Kevin Glass wrote on Townhall.com, “they’ll be shutting down pro-second amendment outreach and the pushes for voter ID laws.”  Glass continues by stating that “conservative organizations and conservative activists need to be able to reassure companies targeted by progressive boycotts that the boycotts won’t make a meaningful financial impact. The reason progressives have gone after ALEC isn’t because ALEC is particularly “extreme” or something – it’s because ALEC has been successful in passing legitimate conservative legislation.”  As we gear up to take on Barack Obama’s billion dollar re-elect campaign, we must not forget our friends and allies who are also fighting to expand conservative principles.  We CANNOT allow these people to “Acorn” us in an election year or any year for that matter.