Obama congratulates MLB on ‘taking a stand’ against Georgia election law as Trump calls for a boycott

Obama on Saturday congratulated the league on taking a stand on behalf of all citizens’ voting rights, following MLB’s announcement on Friday. The Democrat’s support tweeted of the move showed a strong other tone than the statement by his Republican successor late Friday calling for baseball and all the “wake-up companies that interfere with free and fair elections” to boycott.
Opponents of the new election law say the legislation, and similar measures being considered in other states, amount to efforts to suppress voters that will reduce minority voting. Republicans have used the measure, called The Election Integrity Act of 2021, as necessary to increase confidence in elections after the 2020 election, Trump has made repeated, unfounded claims of fraud.
The legislation, signed last month by the Government of Georgia, IDP, Brian Kemp, imposes the requirement to identify voters for absentee ballots, allows officials to take over local election councils, restricts the use of ballot papers and make it a crime to give or offer voters food and drink while waiting in line to vote.
Georgia was the key to President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in November, and Biden called the bill ‘Jim Crow in the 21st Century’ and ‘an atrocity’. On Wednesday, he told ESPN – before the MLB made its decision – that he would “strongly support” the game from Atlanta.
With his Friday announcement, MLB said he still intends to honor baseball legend and Hall of Famer, Hank Aaron, who played for the Atlanta Braves at the All-Star Game.

In his Saturday tweet praising the league’s move, Obama added that “there is no better way for America’s pastime to honor the great Hank Aaron, who has always led by example.”

MLB’s decision to move the match comes as the tourism industry, one of the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic, is still struggling to return.

The ‘estimated lost economic impact’ of MLB’s ‘All-Star Game relocation is more than $ 100 million’, according to a statement from Holly Quinlan, a tourism official in Cobb County.

Kemp blasted the MLB’s decision at a news conference on Saturday as “fears and lies of liberal activists” and “the wishes” of Biden and Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat and voting rights advocate, “put the economic well-being of hard-working Georgians counting on the All-Star Game for a salary. ‘

Atlanta Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield on Saturday that the MLB’s decision would probably be the “first of many boycotts of our state” and called on Republican lawmakers to pass the measure encouraged to revoke it or make changes.

Bottoms told CNN that while she does not like MLB’s decision to pull the game out of her city, “I definitely understand it,” adding that “it hurts our economy and it is my hope that leaders in the state will finally listen. “

“Just as the legislators and the governor decided to continue with this bill, people are making decisions not to come to our state. And it’s going to affect millions of Georgians, jobs, small businesses, our businesses, and it is very sorry., “she said.

According to the league, the new host city for the match on July 13 has yet to be announced.

This story was updated Saturday with additional details.

CNN’s Ali Main, Brian Rokus, Jessica Campisi, Chris Isidore, Steve Almasy and David Close contributed to this report.

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