Deere recently acquiesced to Color of Change's demand that it stop working with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because ALEC, like more than 70 percent of the American people, supported voter ID. John Deere had been working with ALEC's Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force when its Senior Vice President and General Counsel James R. Jenkins sent a letter to Color of Change announcing Deere was leaving ALEC.
Color of Change is a fringe organization co-founded by the controversial Van Jones. It collects online petitions and runs racially charged, negative commercials against targeted corporations. "John Deere is a Fortune 500 company. It is incomprehensible that this multinational corporation would capitulate to a tiny group that trades on race and accepts donations through a retail mailbox store in Oakland, California," said National Center Free Enterprise Project Director Justin Danhof, Esq.
"The U.S. Supreme Court declared that state-level voter ID laws are constitutional in 2008, and a majority of Americans support such laws," said Danhof. "In fact, a comprehensive Washington Post poll found that 74 percent of Americans support voter ID laws - including a majority of Republicans, Democrats, independents, Hispanics and African Americans. It appears Color of Change's true agenda is to demonize free-market advocates and defund their causes. In vociferously opposing voter identification laws, they have themselves become enablers of voter fraud," said Danhof.
National Center Chairman Amy Ridenour explained at the time: "Corporate CEOs who cower in the face of liberal boycott threats need to understand that the left never gives up... If these corporations do not reverse course and immediately grow enough of a backbone to say no when the left tells them what to do, conservatives may as well consider them part of the organized left. It doesn't matter if corporate executives have free-market sentiments hidden deep inside them if they continually surrender to the left's Trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand after demand in public."
"In the end, John Deere's true sin was not just dropping support for ALEC, but in lending corporate clout to race-hustlers and helping them to further demonize those who want to protect law-abiding citizens of all races from having their votes stolen. I hope that Deere's leadership will see the error of its ways and rejoin ALEC, because - even though it no longer works on voter integrity - ALEC's work toward free-market reforms is still badly needed in these times of burdensome government regulations and increased taxes."
