After Georgia, companies are banding together to condemn restrictive voting laws

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Corporate America is, once again, weighing in on politics, and Republicans aren’t happy. After the passage of Georgia’s restrictive new voting law, which was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp on March 25, more than 100 executives and business leaders met to discuss how to combat similar voting bills proposed in state legislatures across the country. Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have advised companies that have made public statements condemning the Georgia law and others like it to “stay out of politics.”

Recent history suggests that corporate leaders are unlikely to do so. And this latest meeting, with attendance from executives representing Starbucks, Target, and major US-based airlines, is further proof of that. The Washington Post reported that executives have considered pausing donations to politicians who support the bills and withholding investments in states like Georgia that have passed such measures.

The Georgia law, known as SB 202, will increase voting restrictions for Georgians by requiring identification for mail-in ballots, shrinking the window for early and absentee voting, limiting the number of ballot drop boxes, banning the provision of food and water to voters waiting in line, and shifting control over local election rules to the state legislature, among other changes. (SB 202 does expand voting access to rural areas, according to a Washington Post analysis, but the added restrictions draw on a long history of voter suppression, specifically directed toward Black voters.)

Prior to the Georgia bill’s passage, few major companies directly commented on the bill, with the exception of Salesforce and Patagonia. Some, like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, and Home Depot, were reticent due to their employment ties to the region; their corporate operations are often affected by decisions made by Georgia’s legislative body. In the past week, however, prominent American brands — from Major League Baseball to Coca-Cola — have publicly condemned the law’s passage and, more broadly, general efforts of voter suppression. The MLB also declared it will relocate the 2021 All-Star Game and the MLB draft out of Atlanta.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/after-georgia-companies-are-banding-together-to-condemn-restrictive-voting-laws/ar-BB1fkiBV

[grumpyduck]

1. Hey, GOPers,

have you ever heard of free speech? You piss off big business, they piss you off.

Fuck you.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. A coalition of 60 law firms has joined business leaders to oppose laws making harder to vote

This makes me smile https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121608

A coalition of 60 major law firms has come together “to challenge voter suppression legislation and to support national legislation to protect voting rights and increase voter participation,” said Brad Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss and the organizer of the group, which has not been formally announced.

Mr. Karp said the coalition would “emphatically denounce legislative efforts to make voting harder, not easier, for all eligible voters, by imposing unnecessary obstacles and barriers on the right to vote.”

Many of Wall Street’s most powerful firms are also part of the effort, including Simpson Thacher; Skadden Arps; Akin Gump; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Ropes & Gray; Sullivan & Cromwell; Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Wachtell Lipton.

“We plan to challenge any election law that would impose unnecessary barriers on the right to vote and that would disenfranchise underrepresented groups in our country,” Mr. Karp said.

The firms will work with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization, to identify laws that it might challenge in court. Mr. Karp said that could include challenging the voting law that Republicans passed in Georgia last month, and which set off a national debate over voting rights.