Eighteenth Democratic lawmaker quits ALEC

Last night Pennsylvania State Rep. Harry Redshaw became the 18th Democrat to resign from ALEC, the right wing outfit behind the rash of anti-union, ant-immigrant, vote suppression and pro-gun laws all over the country.

“The dominoes continue to fall,” said James Ploeser, Pennsylvania’s state organizing director for the Progressive Change Committee, one of the groups leading the drive to get companies and legislators to abandon the group. “ALEC’s voter suppression, union-busting agenda can’t withstand scrutiny and that’s why after days of calls by local PCCC members, Pennsylvania Rep. Harry Redshaw became the 18^th Democrat to dump ALEC. Eighteen down, 58 to go. We will keep the pressure on.”

It was just last Friday that the PCCC launched a nation-wide campaign against the 76 ALEC Democrats who held office in state legislatures across the country.

“It’s a sham to project that ALEC is bipartisan in nature,” said New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, one of seven state lawmakers playing a leading role in the PCCC. “And no Democrat should give aid and comfort to this organization by participating in it, to promote its alleged ‘bipartisanship’.”

In the last 48 hours Redshaw and other ALEC Democrats in Pennsylvania have received dozens of calls from PCCC members in the state, encouraging them to leave ALEC.

Over 80,000 have signed petitions demanding that AT & T, State Farm and Johnson & Johnson cancel their membership.

Other groups, including Color of Change and CREDO action, have run similar petition campaigns with more than 375,000 signatures.

In addition to Proctor & Gamble, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Intuit and the Gates Foundation have all dropped their membership.