President Biden said he would support moving the MLB all star game away from Atlanta, Ga., to protest the state’s newly enacted voting legislation, in an interview on ESPN’s Sports Center on Thursday.
“I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that,” Biden said. “The very people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports, and it’s just not right.”
The president has compared the voting legislation to Jim Crow laws, and did so again in the Sports Center interview.
“This is Jim Crow on steroids, what they’re doing in Georgia and 40 other states,” Biden said. (Various state legislatures controlled by Republicans have considered similar legislation following former President Trump’s claims that Democrats stole the election.)
Georgia’s new voting law, signed by Governor Brian Kemp last week, includes a mandate that voters present valid photo identification at polling places and to request an absentee ballot. The law also restricts the ability of advocacy groups to hand out food and water and polling places.
This and similar legislation have faced opposition from a coalition of black business executives.
“Corporations have to stand up. There is no middle ground,” Ken Chenault, former American Express CEO, told CNBC on Wednesday. “This is about all Americans having the right to vote, but we need to recognize the special history of the denial of the right to vote for Black Americans, and we will not be silent.”
Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian also criticized the law, saying it “does not match Delta’s values.”