It’s been a rough few months for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Long-time corporate contributors like Kraft, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Intuit have dropped out the organization. The Gates Foundation announced they’ll stop making grants to ALEC. And ALEC’s existence and power have been increasingly exposed—not something the secretive corporate lobbying group wants.
This didn’t happen by accident. Nancy Scola of the Atlantic has the best summary I’ve seen of how it happened. Among the key elements:
- Research – The Center for Media & Democracy (CMD) created an online archive last July of ALEC-drafted bills, over 800 of them. As Scola reports, “For years, political types had vague notions of the state-to-state connections, but it was difficult to see the whole picture.” With the ALEC Exposed website, and its wiki format, not only was the whole picture outlined, but interested parties could add new details to the picture as they became available.
- Publicity – Some organizations thrive on public attention. ALEC isn’t one of them. For nearly 40 years one of ALEC’s selling points has been its ability to “fly below the radar” by getting essentially the same bill turned into law state by state on a range of issues that benefit its corporate members. Starting with a series of articles in The Nation, CMD has helped generate a steady drumbeat of news and opinion stories about ALEC and its operations.
- Understanding Self-Interest – Founded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Color Of Change has been an online organizing vehicle for the African-American community. Before this year, the organization’s most notable “win” was organizing a successful boycott of Glenn Beck’s Fox News TV show that ended with Beck’s show being canceled. Color of Change started meeting face-to-face with executives of ALEC’s corporate members, pointing out to them that, for example, voter suppression laws aren’t really in their company’s interests, especially if Color of Change were to launch an online petition drive and boycott of the company if it continued funding ALEC. “(Color of Change executive director Rashad) Robinson recalls one meeting with an executive from Kraft. ‘I told him there are a lot of ways we can elevate this issue,’ said Robinson, laughing. ‘Black people buy a lot of macaroni and cheese.'”
- Strategic Action – In the aftermath of Trayvon Martin’s death, his parents and their worked to publicize the case. Their call was picked up by, among others, Change.org which has become a hub for progressive causes online. Their petition asking for state and federal authorities to intervene in Martin’s case gathered over 2 million signatures. It not only raised the profile of the Martin case; it also raised the profile of the “Stand Your Ground” laws drafted by ALEC and enacted in dozens of states in recent years.
What’s the lesson? ALEC is still a powerful network of organizations and corporations. But it’s less powerful than it was a year ago, and that’s largely because of the disciplined, thoughtful and imaginative work that is marrying online technology and new social media with old-fashioned political and community organizing.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
