Don't let the sponsors off the hook

Georgians struggling to preserve their access to the ballot against a deluge of state voter suppression bills know where Republican politicians' weak spots are: among their corporate funders. 

Here's Nsé Ufot from the New Georgia Project Action Fund:

Some of the country’s biggest corporations are getting away with a stunning level of deception in Georgia. 

Companies like Coca-Cola, Delta, UPS, and AT&T have made a public show of supporting voting rights, and the rights of Black voters in particular. With splashy ads and Black History Month campaigns, they’ve tried to curry favor with customers by trading on the history of the Civil Rights Movement and portraying themselves as allies of its modern-day equivalent. 

But behind the scenes, these same corporations have been donating millions of dollars to the politicians who continue to spout racist lies about the 2020 election and who are working feverishly, right now, to roll voting laws back to the Jim Crow era and silence the voices of thousands of Georgia’s voters. 

These companies cannot have it both ways. It’s time for them to take a stand. They either support the freedom to vote or they do not. We will no longer accept empty rhetoric....

In many states where Republican legislators have believed themselves free to roll back civil rights, calling out their corporate ties is a tried and true tactic. Big national corporations often care more about their national brand and "good will" than about retrograde local politicians. 

In Georgia in 2016, LGBT activists fought off a discriminatory anti-gay bill with help from the Walt Disney Co., Marvel Studios, AMC, and Viacom. Georgia's governor decided he didn't want to face a boycott by dozens of pop culture stars.

Arizona, which also flipped from GOPer to Democratic in the 2020 presidential election, is another target for voter suppression by a Republican legislature. Arizona also has experience with corporate push back against right wing state policies. In the early 1990s, this then very conservative state refused to recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday -- and the NFL removed a Super Bowl from Phoenix. In 2014, American Airlines and Marriott hotels joined the opposition to a bill allow discrimination against gays.

This year, Popular Information reports that major Arizona political donors including Union Pacific and Prudential Financial have pushed back against the current restrictive bills. Others have not taken a pro-inclusive voting stance, including Pinnacle West (the Phoenix area electric power provider), Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Farmers Insurance.  

Campaigns to expose corporate sponsors of right wing power grabs have a good track record.

And, of course, Democrats in Congress must pass the For the People Act to stop most all these anti-democratic shenanigans.