Procter & Gamble [3], the $82.5 billion-a-year maker of many familiar brands of household products such as Bounty, Charmin, Pepto-Bismol, and Pantene, announced [4] that it has decided not to renew its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council [5] (ALEC).

P&G External Relations Manager Elizabeth Ratchford told Color of Change [6] (CoC), the online civil rights group, that the company began reviewing its membership in January and decided not to rejoin ALEC in 2012.

Johnson & Johnson [7], a competing $65 billion-a-year manufacturer of household products such as Tylenol, Band-aids, and Visine, has not yet decided to cut ties with ALEC, despite having heard from thousands of customers. Click here [8] to learn more about the firm's ALEC agenda.

P&G is the 13th company to announce a similar decision in the last three weeks. The other corporations are YUM! Brands, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Intuit, McDonald's, Wendy's, American Traffic Solutions, Reed Elsevier, and Arizona Public Service.

CMD and other groups are currently urging [9] Johnson & Johnson, State Farm, and AT&T to reconsider their membership with ALEC.