McDonald’s doesn’t seem to know when exactly it left ALEC, if it ever did. They do know how to build a fast food store in a local neighborhood that doesn’t want it, though.

Ryan Grim wrote for HuffPost yesterday, and then updated, McDonald’s Says It Left ALEC In March 2012 [UPDATE],

Under pressure from a progressive campaign to abandon the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), McDonald’s is insisting that it left the controversial conservative organization in March.

Yes, but which March?

“We’re trying to correct the misinformation. We were a member last year and made the business decision not to renew in 2012,” McDonald’s spokesperson Ashlee Yingling wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “Unfortunately, information found on many websites is outdated.”

However, a letter sent by McDonald’s to Color of Change, dated February 29, 2012, defended the corporation’s membership in the group.

“McDonald’s is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),” it reads. “It is important to note that while McDonald’s is a member of ALEC’s Commerce Committee, we are not a member of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board which recently passed the “Voter ID” model legislation.”

In response to HuffPost’s request for clarification, Yingling said that the company’s decision to separate from ALEC was in fact made in March 2012.

So that’s Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Intuit, and maybe McDonald’s so far.

Why?

Color of Change has led a public campaign that aims to get ALEC’s members to withdraw. The group supports controversial “policies that limit voting rights, undermine our public schools, assault collective bargaining and weaken laws protecting our environment,” said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, a progressive group also involved in the campaign.

Let’s not forget private prisons, such as the one CCA wanted to build in Lowndes County, and that are still sucking up tax dollars that could go to education.

Next to leave ALEC? How about UPS, based in Atlanta?

-jsq

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