Breaking up is hard to do, as the conservative political lobby ALEC discovered when Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) terminated its relationship with the group.
Google pulls the plug on ALEC funding
As previously reported in ValueWalk, Google pulled the plug on its funding for the American Legislative Exchange Council last week over what it called climate change “lying.” The move left ALEC feeling dazed as confused, as they never saw signs of relationship trouble until they heard about the break-up from third parties.
“It’s like breaking up via text with your girlfriend when you’re 16,” a dejected Lisa Nelson, chief executive officer of the group, told the National Journal. “We were caught by surprise, but we’ve had several conversations with them [since].”
The problems in the relationship occurred when ALEC was engaged in certain behavior with other groups, and Google didn’t approve of the interaction outside their relationship. Google was in the relationship to get lobbying against the government’s electronic spying efforts that was damaging its business. The powerful tech titan didn’t like ALEC’s relationship with other groups that resulted in climate change lobbying.
Schmidt on why Google is pulling away from ALEC
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive chairman Eric Schmidt, speaking with National Public Radio, revealed Google would be pulling its membership from the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because the group was “literally lying” in its opposition of efforts to reduce global warming.
“The company has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on facts — what a shock,” Schmidt said in the interview. “And the facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people — they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”
The public trashing of its relationship, akin to a former lover taking to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to talk about the breakup and trash talk a former lover, didn’t sit well with ALEC.
In the aftermath of the break-up, ALEC is trying to gain composure and move on, trying to reconcile the relationship and justify what happened. “Google didn’t make it a big fuss,” Nelson said, referring to the interview Google had on NPR. “A caller called in and [Schmidt] made his statement. The big fuss is being made by the left-leaning organizations that are on a clearly coordinated attack to silence us and silence our ability to make a change.”
