June, 14 2021, 10:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jay Riestenberg, jriestenberg@commoncause.org; Abhi Rahman, abhi.rahman@firesidecampaigns.
Common Cause, Fair Fight Action, and Over 300 Organizations Call on Corporations to Cut Ties with ALEC
Today, Common Cause, Fair Fight Action, and over 300 organizations penned a letter demanding large corporations, including Anheuser-Busch, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, CenturyLink, Eli Lilly, UPS, FedEx, Oracle, State Farm, Raytheon, Salesforce, Pfizer and others, cut financial ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over its support of voter suppression legislation throughout the country.
WASHINGTON
Today, Common Cause, Fair Fight Action, and over 300 organizations penned a letter demanding large corporations, including Anheuser-Busch, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, CenturyLink, Eli Lilly, UPS, FedEx, Oracle, State Farm, Raytheon, Salesforce, Pfizer and others, cut financial ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over its support of voter suppression legislation throughout the country.
ALEC has used its power to draft and advance Jim Crow-style voter suppression legislation throughout the country. They have partnered with extreme, dark money groups like the Heritage Foundation to try to implement the most suppressive and dangerous pieces of voting legislation that our country has ever seen.
Now, these 300 voting rights organizations representing Americans all over the country are fighting back to ensure that ALEC is held accountable by the corporate donors who fund them. This is the first step of a sustained campaign to ensure that ALEC is held accountable and no longer receives the funding to try to subvert the will of the people and upend our democracy.
TO READ THE FULL LETTER, CLICK HERE
Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn issued the following statement:
"Instead of funding special interest groups that are creating barriers to our freedom to vote, corporations should be joining the movement to deliver the promise of democracy to everyone. That's why we are joining more than 300 organizations to call on all corporations to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is working behind the scenes to restrict voting rights. ALEC has a long history of rigging the rules against everyday Americans while skirting ethics and tax laws. If corporations really believe in protecting our democracy and the right to vote, they must end their affiliation with ALEC."
Cliff Albright, executive director and co-founder of Black Voters Matter issued the following statement:
"We have repeatedly said that corporations must stop funding the elected officials who sponsor and vote for voter suppression, and this demand is equally important in regards to conservative groups and think tanks who fuel the Jim Crow-era approach of creating and replicating racist legislation. These companies cannot hide behind the excuse that they only support ALEC because of their pro-business legislation. Companies are complicit if they are creating a pro-business environment by supporting anti-democratic organizations and policies. We will continue to hold them accountable. It will not be business as usual until they stand up for what is right."
Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice and democracy campaigns at Color Of Change issued the following statement:
"These corporations are targeting Black voters with increasingly aggressive campaigns to suppress votes, disenfranchise communities, and spread dangerous misinformation. Through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), dozens of corporations -- many of whom pledged solidarity with Black workers and consumers just last year -- are secretly funding efforts to silence Black voters. We see right through their hypocrisy, and we are issuing this letter to demand that these businesses take a stand for racial justice. It's time that corporations put real action behind their promises to promote racial equity and immediately cut ties with ALEC."
The following corporations will receive this letter: 1-800-Contacts, Alibaba, Alkermes, Altria, American Electric Power, Anheuser-Busch, Arizona Public Service, Bayer, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Chevron, Coca-Cola Bottling Consolidated, Credit Union National Association, CTIA, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, EDP Renewables, Eli Lilly, Enova Internal, FedEx, First Solar, GlaxoSmithKline, Guarantee Trust Life Insurance, Koch Industries, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, National Automobile Dealers Association, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, NCTA - The Internet & Television Association, Novartis, Oracle, Peabody Energy, Pfizer, PhRMA, Sanofi, Salt River Project, State Farm, Sunovion, UPS, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Vistra Energy.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
(202) 833-1200LATEST NEWS
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"Our analysis suggests that mirror bacteria could broadly evade many immune defenses of humans, animals, and plants," according to a group of 38 scientists, including multiple Nobel Prize winners.
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Dozens of scientists are calling in no uncertain terms for a halt on research to create "mirror life," particularly "mirror bacteria" that could "pose ecological risks" and possibly cause "pervasive lethal infections in a substantial fraction of the plant and animal species, including humans."
The group of 38 scientists, who include Nobel laureates and other experts, addressed research into "mirror life"—mirror-image biological molecules—in a piece of commentary published in the journal Science published Friday, which accompanied a technical report that was released earlier in December.
One of the scientists, synthetic biologist Kate Adamala at the University of Minnesota, was working on creating a mirror cell but "changed track last year" after studying the risks, according to the Guardian.
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To that end, the authors of the commentary plan to convene discussions on the risks of mirror life and related topics in 2025, with the hope that "society at large will take a responsible approach to managing a technology that might pose unprecedented risks."
The ability to create mirror life is likely over a decade away and would require sizable investment and technical progress, meaning the world has the opportunity to "preempt risks before they are realized," according to the scientists.
When broken down into simple terms, mirror life sounds like something out of science fiction. All the biomolecules that constitute life have a "handedness" to them—"right-handed" nucleotides make up DNA and RNA, and proteins are formed from "left-handed" amino acids.
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While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
At the national level, UnitedHealth has spent over $5.8 million this year lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
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"In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta," reads a new report.
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The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts described by one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.
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At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.
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"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."
Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.
The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.
Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.
A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.
As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.
"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
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