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Major League Baseball withdrew its summer All-Star Game from suburban Atlanta on Friday, the first major rebuke to the new Republican-backed election law in Georgia that particularly restricts access to voting in urban areas of the United States. ‘State.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision came after days of pressure from civil rights groups and the Major League Baseball Players Association. The action is likely to put additional pressure on other leading organizations and businesses to consider pulling the companies out of Georgia, a move which Republicans and Democrats across the state are opposed to despite. their fierce disagreement over the new voting law.
Baseball’s decision comes as other states move closer to passing new laws that would further restrict voting in their states. In Texas, home to two professional baseball teams, the state Senate this week passed a law that would limit early voting hours, ban car voting, add new restrictions on postal voting, and ban election officials local mailing requests to vote by mail to voters, even if they are eligible. In Florida, which is also home to two major league teams, the state legislature introduced a bill that would significantly limit drop boxes.
Earlier this week, President Biden joined a growing call to relocate the game over new voting laws that he and civil rights groups say will have a disproportionate impact on people of color. Georgian law introduced stricter identification requirements for absentee voting, limited the use of drop boxes, and expanded the power of the Legislative Assembly over elections.
In a statement, Mr Manfred said that after conversations with teams, players, former stars and representatives of the players’ union, he concluded that “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is to move the All-Star Game and this year’s MLB Draft. “
Baseball said it was finalizing details on new locations for this year’s All-Star Game and Draft. The league faced the unsettling prospect of marking the upcoming April 15 annual celebration of Jackie Robinson becoming the first modern black player in the major leagues, and an All-Star week dedicated to former great Henry Aaron of the Atlanta Braves. , while the state voting law was widely publicized. as the targeting of black voters loomed.
Georgia Democrats did not call for a boycott of the game, but pressured Major League Baseball and other Georgia-based companies to oppose the state’s new election law.
Stacey Abrams, the incumbent leader of the state Democrats, said Friday she was “disappointed” that baseball pulled her All-Star game, but said she was “proud of their position on the right to vote. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat elected in the January run-off election, said Thursday that there should be no boycott of Georgian or Georgian businesses, but that legally shaken businesses should “stop all support financier to the Republican Party of Georgia ”.
Many Democratic members of the state legislature have also spoken out against boycotts in Georgia. “Stop with this boycott nonsense,” wrote Jen Jordan, a Democratic senator from outside of Atlanta, on Twitter last week. “I would rather people and businesses use their economic power in this state to change than not come here at all.”
At least one Georgia Democrat, Representative Teri Anulewicz, whose Cobb County district includes the Braves Stadium, has expressed disappointment at no longer hosting the game.
Georgia Republicans scoffed at the prospect of boycotts. After Coca-Cola opposed the law, David Ralston, the president of State House, told reporters that he drank a Pepsi, an act of heresy in Coca-dominated Atlanta.
Mr. Biden, in a television interview with ESPN ahead of MLB’s opening day Thursday, said he would “strongly support” the All-Star Game’s relocation out of Atlanta. He called Georgian law and the equally restrictive voting bills that Republicans are pushing in almost every state “Jim Crow on steroids.”
While the National Basketball Association has often been at the forefront of promoting progressive politics – it moved its own all-star game from Charlotte after Republicans in North Carolina enacted a “toilet ban” on transgender people – baseball has rarely made such an important political statement. like moving his midsummer classic out of Georgia.
In an interview earlier this week with The Associated Press, Mr. Manfred, the baseball commissioner had hinted that he was strongly considering moving the game, but declined to make any firm commitments.
“I speak to various constituencies within the game and I just don’t go beyond what I would or might not consider,” Manfred said at the time.
Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLB Players’ Association, said the union was open to discuss the withdrawal from the game, scheduled for July 13 at Truist Park in suburban Cobb County, home of the Atlanta Braves.
James wagner, Kevin Draper and Joe drape contribution to reports.
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