Georgia faces Business Increase, Political Pressure to Overcome Voting Laws
POLITICS DO NOT STOP Georgia from passing electoral law that makes it difficult for people to vote. But bankers’ voting rights bankers in the United States are set to postpone dramatic new restrictions, including a provision that makes it legal to transfer snacks and water to people waiting for hours at the polling station.
After Democrats won a landslide victory in the long-running red empire – taking Georgia from the presidential race and taking two critical seats in the US Senate – the GOP-led national legislature responded swiftly, passing a package that results in barring black communities from voting. Government Brian Kemp, also a Republican, signed the measure on the same day.
Now, activists want to boycott Georgia-based companies by pressuring them to do more to change restrictions. President Joe Biden, who last week called the law “American” and an attempt to cover up black voter turnout, took action on Wednesday night, telling ESPN he would “strongly support” the release of Atlanta’s All-Star Game Major League Baseball they do not change.
“This is Jim Crow on steroids, which they do in Georgia,” Biden said on the eve of Opening Day, referring to the separatist laws enacted after the civil war.
“The very people who are being abused the most are the leaders in the various games,” Biden said. “And it’s just not right.”
Meanwhile, activists want to boycott companies such as Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot in order to pressure Georgian firms to use their power to pressure the legislature.
Company bosses have criticized the bill. Delta chief executive Ed Bastian issued a statement to airline employees stating: “After having time to fully understand all that is in the law, including discussions with leaders and staff in the Black community, it is clear that the bill includes provisions that will make it difficult for many unelected voters, especially voters. Blacks, exercising their constitutional right to choose their representatives. That is wrong. “
The reason for the bill – that voter fraud robbed President Donald Trump Georgia of 16 votes – “was based on lies,” Bastian said.
Coca-Cola chief executive James Quincey told CNBC on Wednesday that the company had always opposed the law but decided to speak out after its approval.
Business pressure has intensified in recent years in getting countries to change policy on social issues. The North Carolina legislature has repealed a law called a “bathroom building” that requires people to use public toilets on the basis of their sexual orientation after a strike threatened by major corporations and sports organizations.
That example has undermined efforts by other provinces to undermine the protection of homosexuals, gays, and lesbians. Major U.S. companies, including Apple, IBM, Walmart and American Airlines, as well as the NFL and the NBA, have voiced strong opposition to LGBT rights, with the obvious threat of dragging their business to the states that have imposed those laws.
Georgia in 2016, then-Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, voted in favor of a law that would allow businesses to deny human rights transactions on the basis of their opposition to same-sex marriage. The deal was under intense pressure by the NFL and Hollywood. TV and film production have added billions of dollars to the Georgian economy.
The situation in Georgia is now more precarious, as delimitation of voters could make it harder for even the right-to-vote lawmakers to win their next election.
Stacey Abrams, a Democratic voting rights activist and former Georgian state legislator, opposed the boycott – in the meantime – as a way to change the new Peach State law.
“Another lesson to boycott is that the pain of deprivation must be shared in order to stabilize. Otherwise, those who are able to withstand extreme hardships bear the brunt of these actions; and after that, strive to achieve success,” Abrams wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in USA Today. .
Companies should employ young people, white people and low-wage workers who are highly targeted by the new law, he said. And they should stop funding the campaigns of lawmakers who voted for the limits, and instead use those dollars to help people get the image they will need, under the new laws, to vote.
“I beg you to bring your business to Georgia and, if you already have it, always fight,” Abrams wrote. “Keep voting.”