Corporate Backers’ Exodus Hits Conservative Lawmakers’ Group

A nonprofit national policy organization composed mainly of Republican state legislators is mounting a campaign to win back corporate donors that abandoned the group after it was publicly linked with controversial “stand your ground” laws, according to The Guardian.

The British daily cites internal documents outlining the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Prodigal Son Project” targeting Amazon, Walmart, Coca-Cola, and other major firms that cut ties with the group last year. The exodus followed media reports on the council’s support of self-defense laws like that invoked in the February 2012 slaying of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida.

ALEC, as the group is known, has lost more than 60 corporate backers and hundreds of members since the Martin shooting, and its income from membership dues, donations, and conferences has fallen dramatically, according to The Guardian. The internal papers also outline plans to spin off a 501(c)(4) social-welfare organization to head off allegations that ALEC, a 501(c)(3) charity, engages in illicit lobbying.

An ALEC spokesman said the organization does not lobby but that the planned 501(c)(4) affiliate “illustrates a desire for compliance with the law.”