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ALEC Exodus Yelp, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo Drop ALEC Grassroots campaigners are on a roll, as first Microsoft, then Google, Facebook, Yelp, and now Yahoo have caved to public pressure to drop their membership in the controversial corporate bill mill called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Next in their sights: eBay and AOL. ALEC, which generated or disseminated voter suppression legislation, "Stand Your Ground" laws, and measures to dismantle unions as well as preempt minimum wage and sick leave ordinances, is now in hot water for its "free market" agenda to promote fossil fuels and cook the planet. As CMD has documented, ALEC is funded by an array of fossil fuel interests, including Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, TransCanada, and Peabody Energy. ALEC has promoted the repeal of Renewable Portfolio Standards and the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. It has called on state legislators to engage in "Guerrilla Warfare" against the EPA, and urged politicians to recruit their state attorney general to sue over the EPA's new emissions rules. Over 80 firms -- including some of the largest Fortune 500 firms in the nation -- have dumped ALEC since CMD started launched ALECexposed.org in 2011. See the list of ALEC corporate members here. Read the rest of this item here. Special Reports We suspected it all along, but now we have the goods that prove that Charles Koch was a member of the John Birch Society at the height of their attacks on the civil rights movement and civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King. In the early 1960s Charles moved back to Wichita and followed in the footsteps of his dad Fred Koch who helped found the John Birch Society in 1958. We broke the story on DemocracyNow!, provided detailed excerpts of the anti-civil rights agenda, and launched a new wiki resource called Koch Exposed (of course). You can see our full special report in the new "Robber Barons" edition of The Progressive magazine.

ALEC Open Records Lawsuit After Unprecedented Claim of Legislative Immunity, Vukmir Releases ALEC Records, Pays Damages After nearly a year of litigation, the Center for Media and Democracy has settled its open records lawsuit against American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) National Board member and Wisconsin State Senator Leah Vukmir. Senator Vukmir, who had previously insisted that she had no records in her possession and made an unprecedented claim of legislative immunity, is anticipated to release numerous emails from her private email account, and pay $2,500 in damages. This may be the first time a Wisconsin legislator has had to pay damages under Wisconsin's open records law. Read the full article here.