CVS Drops Out of ALEC

CVS, Rhode Island’s biggest local corporation, has dropped its membership with American Legislative Exchange Council, the controversial “right wing bill mill.”

The Woonsocket-based company put out this statement today: “Over the last few weeks, we have closely followed the issues surrounding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and have heard from numerous stakeholders expressing their views. As a result, after careful consideration of the available information, CVS Caremark has discontinued its membership in ALEC.”

Company spokesman Michael DeAngelis declined to make further comment. Jon Brien, a conservative state Rep. from Woonsocket who is on ALEC’s board of directors, could not be immediately reached for comment (but we’ll update this story when we hear from him).

With CVS’s departure from ALEC, that leaves only one Rhode Island company as a member of the once-clandestine group that pairs legislators with corporate interests to draft model legislation for use at State Houses around the country. According to the website ALEC Exposed, GTech is still an ALEC member. GTech officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The John Deere tractor company, MillerCoors, BestBuy, Hewlett-Packard also dropped out of ALEC today.