ALEC Can’t Seem To Keep Its Spats From Getting Into Public View

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) seems to be taking it from all sides.

First, major member businesses left the organization griping about climate change. Then ALEC’s spat with liberal advocacy groups became public when those groups published cease and desist letters from ALEC.

Now, the progressive wireless carrier Credo Mobile is refusing to comply with Alec’s most recent attempt to gag an opponent.

Credo’s cease and desist order from ALEC is different from the ones it sent out to Common Cause and the League of Conservation voters. Those orders, which both groups said they would refuse comply with, regarded the groups’ claims that ALEC clearly opposes moves to curb climate change. The Credo cease and desist letter concerns charges that ALEC opposes expanding municipal broadband services.

“We demand that you cease making inaccurate statements regarding ALEC, and immediately remove all false or misleading from the Working Assets and Credo Action or related websites and action pages within five business days,” ALEC’s cease and desist letter said. “Should you not do so, and/or continue to publish any defamatory statements, we will consider any and all necessary legal action to protect ALEC.”

Credo, though, won’t comply with the claims and instead made its response, which it sent out on April 9, public.

“ALEC’s own Communications and Technology Task Force page on municipal broadband, http://www.alec.org/task-forces/telecommunications-and-information-technology/municipal-broadband/, advances the position that broadband should not be provided by local governments,” Credo wrote in the response.

The letter went on to cite a passage from ALEC’s telecommunications task force:

There is no question that broadband will becomes [sic] as ubiquitous as the traditional household utilities. But does it deserve the same classification as water & sewer, roadways or school systems in being provided by the government? A growing number of municipalities are answering “yes” by building their own networks and offering broadband services to their citizens.

The back-and-forth is the latest example of ALEC’s troubles with member organizations and other entities. A number of major businesses like Google and Microsoft have cut ties with ALEC complaining that the organization has misstated its position on climate change. Most recently, the telecommunications company T-Mobile publicly stated its intention to leave the organization. Unlike Google or Microsoft, T-Mobile did not cite climate change as its reason for severing ties with ALEC.

To Chris Lehane, the top strategist for the environmentalist and billionaire Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate, the biggest datapoint for ALEC is that member groups keep departing. Lehane told TPM that customers of businesses in ALEC “see it as really important and are making the decision that they cannot associate themselves with organizations that are perceived to fundamentally out of step” on an issue like climate change.

Read Credo’s response to ALEC’s cease and desist letter below:

Credo Response to Alec CD Ltr