Apparently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s threat to corporations to “stay out of politics” didn’t have the result he intended. Big business seems to be getting more serious about pushing back as Republicans continue to push voter suppression measures in states across the country. More than 100 top corporate executives joined a Zoom call Saturday to discuss how to apply pressure against such legislation, The Washington Post reports.
Companies represented included Delta, American, United, Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, Levi Strauss, and Boston Consulting Group, as well as Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, the Post reports, and the discussion included “potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures.”
The call, which lasted over an hour, “shows they are not intimidated by the flak. They are not going to be cowed,” according to one of its organizers, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor. “They felt very strongly that these voting restrictions are based on a flawed premise and are dangerous.”
That “flawed premise” is in fact Donald Trump’s big lie, which even Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan has made clear, saying on CNN, “This is really the fallout from the 10 weeks of misinformation that flew in from former President Donald Trump.”
Before Georgia passed the instantly notorious voter suppression law that started the blowback from corporations, some top Georgia businesses worked behind the scenes to try to blunt the bill’s worst provisions. But once the law passed, they saw that that wasn’t going to cut it, prompting the more public corporate opposition to attacks on voting rights.
Republicans in Georgia responded to that corporate opposition with threats of retaliation, including a failed (for now) attempt to strip Delta Air Lines of a major tax break. In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed: “Texans are fed up with corporations that don’t share our values trying to dictate public policy.” And, of course, there was that “warning” from McConnell, though he quickly tried to walk it back a little when he saw how badly it played.
All this—the voter suppression measures that prompt blowback, the sudden turn against their usual corporate allies—comes because, first, Donald Trump lost and couldn’t admit it and made it an article of faith for his base that elections are being stolen, and second, because Republicans know that their electoral future depends on making it harder to vote, especially for Black and brown people, low-income people, and young people.
Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to protect the right to vote and expand access to voting, from Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms trying to mitigate the impact of the new Georgia anti-voting law to House Democrats passing historic voting reforms—which, of course, Senate Republicans are blocking. But this can’t be framed as a partisan fight. It’s about whether the United States really values its democracy. Whether voting is a right that all eligible people can equally access, or a privilege easily extended to some while others are forced to overcome barrier after barrier to use it. Whether our voting laws are made in the name of justice or in the name of Trump’s big lie. If you’re on the wrong side of that, it’s not a routine partisan issue. It’s a stain on your name and on your soul.
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