Dick Durbin Asking Companies What They Think of ALEC, Stand Your Ground

According to the Free Beacon, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent a letterto companies this week that may have supported the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, asking them about about ALECs work on model legislation for Stand Your Ground laws.Some are saying Durbin is attempting to tie ALEC to the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, while those associated with the organization say it is less about policy than a political effort to criticize a prominent right-of-center group.

Durbin's letter sets the stage for a Senate hearingannounced last month on the controversial laws, which have gathered considerable criticism since Zimmerman's acquittal, although Stand Your Ground was not invoked in his defense.Durbin and many other Democrats have attempted to tie the laws to the 2012 shooting of Martin, even though Zimmerman never invoked the law as self-defense.

The Washington Examinerrevealed on Wednesdaythat talking points being circulated among congressional Democrats advisedthem to use Martin's death as leverage for restrictions on gun control. Just last year, ALEC was targeted by left-wing activists who sought to tie the group to the shooting.But while ALEC wrote model Stand Your Ground legislation, the group says it played no part in Floridas enactment of the law. Stand Your Ground was first introduced in Florida in 2004.

ALECs Civil Justice Task Force adoptedits model Stand Your Ground legislation in August 2005. Five months later, former Gov. Jeb Bush signed Stand Your Ground into law.

Durbin asked companies for clarification [on] whether companies that have funded ALECs operations in the past currently support ALEC and the model stand your ground legislation. Durbin's actions have caused some to speculate that his effort is political in nature and that he is targeting groups that he and other liberals disagree with.

Several large companies, such as Koch Industries, which is run by Charles and David Koch, have been targeted by the left for their political leanings. Just last year,MSNBC contributor Karen Finney saidin 2012 that the Koch Brothers, among other companies, funded and ghost write these [Stand Your Ground] laws through its support for ALEC, but the Koch Brothers and other companies insist they had nothing to do with the enactment of the law.