Chalk another loss up in the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) lose column. Color of Change
announced today that Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) has confirmed it has left ALEC. ColorOfChange.org Executive Director Rashad Robinson:
"Today, employees in Yum! Brands' corporate headquarters have told our members and ColorOfChange staff that the company has in fact dropped ALEC. In doing so, the operator of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell has restored our belief that it stands in favor of crafting legislation in view of the public, rather than behind closed doors.
"We sent CEO David Novak's office a letter last year expressing our concerns about ALEC's role in voter suppression, and in early February received a noncommittal response from James Fripp, the company's Senior Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion. That letter said that Yum! was not part of ALEC's Private Enterprise Board, but did not communicate that the company had severed ties completely with the conservative policy group.
That makes an even dozen companies (McDonald's, Wendy's, Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Intuit, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Reed Elsevier [owner of LexisNexis], American Traffic Solutions and Arizona Public Service) who have severed ties with ALEC, in
addition to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
There's no question that ALEC has been significantly damaged by the exposure of their extreme right-wing agenda. They'll likely not go away, but they also won't be able to operate in secrecy any more.