News recently came out that the AARP has withdrawn its support from the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC, after its membership voiced outraged that the AARP could support a right-wing lobbying group associated with the Koch brothers, who are kingpins within the conservative movement. One has to wonder who is running AARP these days and why would the organization support a cause that is against the best interests of its membership? The organization known as ALEC has supported the privatization of Social Security and has let it be known that its supporters are not fans of Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
The AARP is supposed to be an organization that advocates for seniors, but lending support to a lobbying group that is dead set on abolishing the most important programs to seniors is an odd way to advocate. After a huge backlash from AARP members the organization released the following statement on its Facebook page.
“After hearing from many of you, we’ve decided not to renew our membership to ALEC. We would never work against the interests of older Americans and our engagement with ALEC was NOT an endorsement of the organization’s policies, but an opportunity to engage with state legislators and advance our members’ priorities.
AARP is and always has been non-partisan. We meet with legislators from both sides of the aisle in order to do our job: fighting to improve the lives of people 50+. We will continue to explore ways to serve our diverse membership and fulfill our responsibility to engage with all legislators on the issues important to older Americans and their families.”
Although it’s great that the AARP has now dropped its membership with ALEC, I am not so sure of the organization’s reasoning behind joining up with ALEC in the first place. I guess only time will tell to see who the AARP joins up with next, hopefully it’s not The Heritage Foundation.
