ALEC takes a step back from voter suppression and gun legislation

by David Safier

This is the latest in a string of events showing that ALEC is losing some of its clout, from being dragged out of the shadows by a number of progressive organizations and blogs, to being connected with the Shoot First laws it has promoted around the country, to having a number of corporate donors drop their support.

Now, ALEC has announced it will end its task force that dealt with Non-Economic Issues. That, according to the ALEC press release, refers to "the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force."

This is huge. ALEC has bowed to pressure and decided to stop pushing its voter suppression and NRA-related legislation. I'm not so naive as to think these tasks won't be jobbed out to other conservative groups, but simply making ALEC blink is huge — and really, no one else is as good at disseminating right wing legislation across the country as ALEC.

You can read the press release about ALEC's decision from The Second Chance on Shoot First Campaign below the fold. The group "is a partnership of ColorofChange.org, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the National Action Network, the NAACP, the National Urban League and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg."

We welcome today's decision by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to effectively disavow the National Rifle Association and disband its Public Safety and Elections Task Force.

While chaired and financially supported by the NRA, ALEC's Public Safety and Elections task force has promoted firearms legislation that has dramatically undermined public safety. After Florida passed a "Shoot First" law first drafted by the NRA in 2005, the gun lobby used ALEC to push these laws onto the books of 25 other states.  These laws have created an atmosphere of vigilantism and made it more difficult for police and prosecutors to make arrests and bring charges in cases involving deadly shootings.  States with Shoot First laws have also experienced a major increase in cases of so-called 'justifiable homicide.'

These laws have been a public policy and public safety disaster.  We hope legislators who have supported them at the NRA's insistence will now join our campaign to reform or repeal them.