Recently a former colleague, whom I deeply respect and look to for inspiration and innovation in business, made a comment publicly on LinkedIn that the platform should not be where political discussions occur.
I wholeheartedly and vehemently disagree.
We can no longer hive off our political views and values keeping them in a separate space or mental box from our professional lives. The two are now inextricably linked and to suggest otherwise is to presume that politics and policy are divorced from our roles as leaders in business. What we see happening in Georgia with the passage of SB 202 that is based on the fundamental lie that there was election fraud in 2020, must be met head on with the facts and the truth. There was no election fraud. The election was not stolen. This Republican backed state bill is an attempt to suppress African American and youth voting because the Republican party, devoid of governing ideas and popular policy know the only way to preserve power is by blocking access to the voting booth to the constituencies who are increasingly flexing their voting muscle.
Since the Capitol Insurrection on January 6th, we continue to see the most systemic threat to voting rights as 47 state legislatures attempt to push 108 restrictive voting rights bills in the last five weeks. Republican politicians are threatening access to the voting booth, making it harder to vote all in the name of “election integrity.” These bills include sweeping changes to election oversight making it easier for Republican controlled state legislators to ignore the will of the people, enabling them to step in and take over local election oversight. This is a bad faith attempt to allow the GOP to interfere with the independent election boards or secretaries of state now tasked with managing our elections.
To be clear Republicans are unable to win elections on the strength of their policies and now realize the only way they can win is by limiting access to voting by minority and youth voters in an effort to depress Democratic turnout. This is voter suppression. Companies can no longer stay on the sideline in the hopes that they will be insulated from these political realities. In fact, they need to be addressing them head on. Seventy-two African American executives signed on to a letter in The New York Times to encourage all companies to use their considerable political clout to oppose new voter restriction laws.
I would argue we need all companies to push for the current federal Voting Rights bill to be passed into law which means rewriting the filibuster to allow for this critical piece of legislation to pass. It is clear that the Republican party is making an aggressive play to limit voting access and allow for direct interference in our elections. For too long Republicans have ignored the majority of Americans on a host of issues from climate change policy, to healthcare, to gun reform, to LGBTQIA+ rights and much more.
The first step is to preserve the equality of access, fairness and independence of our election process.
The For The People Act (H.R. 1) looks to expand voting access rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, limit partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.
All companies and all corporate leaders no matter their political persuasion should be fighting for passage of this federal legislation which will stop these state initiatives and preserve our collective voting rights. The time is now to act. As business leaders we need to join together and use our collective voices to push for this federal legislation to be passed to prohibit further erosion of our voting rights.
Thomas Jefferson said “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” Shouldn’t we be making it easier for all voters to participate in our democracy?
Barbara Kittridge is Founder / Partner at Motive LLC, an integrated political agency that brings modern marketing techniques to the political and non-profit worlds.