President Biden said the best way for Georgia and other states to stay in the good graces of businesses is to stop adopting “new Jim Crow laws” and “smarten up.”
Mr. Biden has embraced Major League Baseball’s decision to relocate the 2021 All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver in response to Georgia’s recent election overhaul, which requires identification for absentee ballots, expands early voting and curtails electioneering near polling places.
“It is reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up about how these new Jim Crow laws are just antithetical to who we are,” Mr. Biden said at the White House.
Mr. Biden, however, said there is a downside.
“The other side to it, too, is when they in fact move out of Georgia, the people who need the help the most — people who are making hourly wages — sometimes get hurt the most,” he said.
Cobb County officials say MLB’s decision will cost the county somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million in lost tourism dollars.
Voting rights activists Stacey Abrams has lamented the decision will hurt working-class voters in the area.
“I think it’s a very tough decision for a corporation to make, or a group to make, but I respect them when they make that judgment and I support whatever judgment they make.,” Mr. Biden said. “But the best way to deal with this is for Georgia and other states to smarten up. Stop it. Stop it.”
Mr. Biden last week praised the Major League Baseball Players Association for expressing interest in moving the game in response to Georgia’s new voter law.
Mr. Biden said he “would strongly support” the players if they backed moving the game.
MLB went on to pull the game out of Atlanta.
Asked Tuesday whether the The Masters at Augusta National should be moved out of Georgia, Mr. Biden said, “I think that’s up to The Masters.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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