ALEC Exposed

Pharmacy benefits manager Express-Scripts told the Center for Media and Democracy today that it has ended its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), making it the twenty-sixth business to dump ALEC in recent months.

Just in time for summer, Americans can cut their grass with a John Deere mower, drink a cold Miller High Life, and buy sunscreen from CVS without fear that their consumer dollars will be used to fund policies like voter suppression and climate change denial, now that Deere & Co., MillerCoors, and CVS have dropped their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Also cutting ties with ALEC are top computer maker Hewlett-Packard (HP) and electronics retailer Best Buy.

This month, a former leader of the Internal Revenue Service filed a complaint that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has violated the terms of its nonprofit status by operating primarily for the private benefit of its corporate members, based on documents and research from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which manages PRWatch, ALECexposed, and SourceWatch. The complaint, which also alleges that ALEC misrepresented itself in tax filings, raises additional allegations beyond those in earlier IRS complaints filed by Common Cause.

By Will Dooling and Brendan Fischer

Democrats at the U.S. Conference of Mayors have recently backed "parent trigger" laws that allow parents to seize control of their public schools and fire the teachers and principal, or privatize the schools -- a policy also supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heartland Institute.

Is the "Parent Trigger" a successful plan for empowering parents and promoting school reform, or is it a vehicle for the private takeover of public schools?