Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, McDonald's Drop Support of ALEC

The fast food giant tells Mother Jones that it recently decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country. "While [we] were a member of ALEC in 2011, we evaluate all professional memberships annually and made the business decision not to renew in 2012," Ashlee Yingling, a McDonald's spokeswoman, wrote in an email. Yingling didn't mention any specific campaign or outside pressure as playing a role in the company's decision to leave ALEC.

EARLIER: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the latest group to drop its support of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The foundation announced yesterday that it would no longer provide grants to the group Katrina vanden Huevel describes as a "corporate leviathan."

Roll Call reports that the foundation had "contributed more than $375,000 to ALEC in the past two years."

The announcement comes days after Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft dropped their support of ALEC. 

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/10-7