(CNN) -- As election 2012 heats up, the question of how corporations will figure into the first presidential election post-Citizens United is a hot topic. This week, both Pepsi and Coca Cola renounced their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, giving us a hint of what corporate accountability might look like this election year. The companies quit the trade group, which had been pushing restrictive voter ID laws, after being targeted by prominent African-American progressive group Color of Change. With the controversial 2010 Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court declared the corporate expenditure ban unconstitutional, holding that independent expenditures could not be constitutionally limited in federal elections, and implicitly that corporations could give unlimited amounts to other groups to spend, as long as the expenditures were made independently from the supported candidate.
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Ilyse Hogue: Coke bowing out of ALEC shows how accountability looks in election year
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She says American Legislative Exchange Council pushed voter ID, "stand your ground" laws
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She says in post-Citizens United world, people don't tolerate mix of corporations, politics
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Hogue: Look for more consumers to seek democracy amid corporate influence
@placeholder is not a new group; it predates the Citizens United decision by almost four decades.