Texas Business Leaders and Big Firms Blast Voter Suppression Bill
Texas Business Leaders and Several Big Corporation including Unilever, Microsoft Criticized Voter Suppression Bill
Texas Business leaders and Texas-based several big corporations sharply blasted on voting restrictions by the state legislature, releasing several letters on Tuesday to warn of their opposition to the bills after the legislation of Georgia led to business boycotts. A self-described, unbiassed coalition of giant corporations, including HP, Microsoft, along with Texas-based business groups organized by the group Fair Elections Texas, called for elected officials to clash with any changes that would restrict the access of eligible voters to the ballot, but didn’t reference the legislation specifically.
The letter from Houston business leaders comes in response to the Texas House Speaker saying the bills would not suppress voters and asked for input from businesses. The business leaders’ letter indicates a plan to meet with the legislature to share further concerns.
Big corporations such as HP, REI Co-op, Sodexo, American Airlines, Unilever, Salesforce, Etsy, Warby Parker, Levi Strauss & Co, Patagonia, and Sodexo signed the open letter to oppose the voter legislation. Separately, one hundred and seventy-five business leaders in Houston sent a protest letter to Dade Phelan, the House Speaker Tuesday that more openly opposes the planned legislation in the state, according to the Houston Chronicle reports.
Texas Business Leaders and Big Firms Blast Voter Suppression Bill Source: Web
SB7 and HB 6 Measures
Additionally, the letters mark the most corresponding push by the business community of Texas yet against the proposed voting restrictions of representatives after Dell and American Airlines formerly spoke out independently against the new voting rules. Moreover, Texas representatives are considering two pieces of voting rights lawmaking: SB 7, which would impose restrictions on physical voting and ban drive-through polling places among other actions, and HB 6, which imposed these restrictions as criminalizing sending unwelcome mail-in vote applications to electorates and increases the rights of partisan poll watchers.
It is not clear which measures will move forward: a Texas House committee passed the bill, and the Texas Senate passed SB7 as well, but Republican House representatives replaced its text with HB 6’s requirements, introducing a conflict between the two bills. Moreover, according to an April analysis from the Perryman Group, Texas’ economy could lose $14.7 billion in domestic power by 2025 if ballot restrictions undergo and face opposition from businesses.
Texas could lose almost $16.7 billion in the yearly gross product by 2025 and nearly one lac and fifty thousand because of the possible tourism hit and noteworthy sporting events and conventions moving out of the state.
On the other hand, Republican lawmakers defended their new voting bills as they claimed those bills necessary to guarantee election integrity and railed against companies who opposed the restrictions. Big corporations all over the country criticized the wave of Republican-led voting restrictions, now passed countrywide in response to unproven allegations of election fraud in November, which passed in states including Montana, Georgia, Florida, and Iowa.
