Politics didn't stop Georgia from enacting a sweeping election law making it harder for people to vote. But voting right advocates are banking on corporate America to undo the dramatic new restrictions, including a provision that makes it illegal to pass out snacks and water to people waiting hours in line to cast ballots.After Democrats scored pivotal victories in the long-red state – taking Georgia in the presidential race and picking up two critical seats in the U.S. Senate – the GOP-run state legislature responded quickly, passing a package that has the effect of putting up barriers for Black communities to vote. Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, signed the measure the same day.Now, activists are calling for boycotts of companies headquartered in Georgia to pressure them to do more to reverse the restrictions. President Joe Biden, who last week called the law "un-American" and a thinly disguised effort to suppress the Black vote, took a step further Wednesday night, telling ESPN he would "strongly support" moving Major League Baseball's All-Star Game out of Atlanta if things don't change."This is Jim Crow on steroids, what they're doing in Georgia," Biden said on the eve of Opening Day, referring to segregationist laws passed in the aftermath of the Civil War."The very people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports," Biden said. "And it's just not right."Meanwhile, activists are calling for boycotts of companies such as Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot to pressure the Georgia-based firms to use their clout to in turn pressure the legislature.Company chiefs have criticized the bill. Delta CEO Ed Bastian issued a statement to the airline's employees in which he said: "After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it's evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong."The very rationale for the bill – that voter fraud deprived former President Donald Trump Georgia's 16 Electoral College votes – "was based on a lie," Bastian said.Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey told CNBC on Wednesday that the company had always opposed the law but decided to speak up after it was approved.Corporate pressure has been effective in recent years in getting states to change policy on social issues. North Carolina lawmaker rescinded the so-called "bathroom bill" requiring people to use the public restroom according to their birth sex after a threatened boycott by major corporations and sports entities.That example discouraged efforts in other states to weaken protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well. Major U.S. companies, including Apple, IBM, Walmart and American Airlines, as well as the NFL and the NBA, voiced strong opposition to laws restricting LGBT rights, with the implicit threat of pulling their business from states that enacted such laws.In Georgia in 2016, then-Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, vetoed a law that would have allowed businesses to deny servies to people based on their objection to same-sex marriage. Deal was under heavy pressure by the NFL and Hollywood. TV and film-making added billions of dollars to Georgia's economy.The situation in Georgia now is more fraught, since undoing the voter restrictions could make it harder for the very lawmakers who voted for the package to win their next elections.Stacey Abrams, a Democratic voting rights activist and former Georgia state legislative leader, argued against a boycott – for now – as a way to reverse the Peach State's new law."One lesson of boycotts is that the pain of deprivation must be shared to be sustainable. Otherwise, those least resilient bear the brunt of these actions; and in the aftermath, they struggle to access the victory," Abrams wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in USA Today.Corporations should hire youth, people of color and minimum wage workers who are most targeted by the new law, she said. And they should stop financing the campaigns of lawmakers who voted for the restrictions, instead using those dollars to help people get the photo identification they will need, under the new rules, to vote."I ask you to bring your business to Georgia and, if you're already here, stay and fight," Abrams wrote. "Stay and vote."
Georgia Faces Mounting Corporate, Political Pressure to Undo Voting Law
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