Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is inviting Major League Baseball (MLB) to hold their All-Star Game in New York after the league pulled the event out of Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s recently passed voter reform law.
In a Saturday morning tweet, Schumer (D, NY) blasted the law as “racist voter suppression” and said the league should consider New York, where “we are working to make it easier, not harder, to vote.”
Racist voter suppression laws are now hurting Georgia’s voters AND its economy.
Georgia Republicans should be ashamed.
We would welcome @MLB to come to come play the All-Star Game in New York where we are working to make it easier, not harder, to vote. https://t.co/ozf9XbP9Y9
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 3, 2021
The voter reform law at the center of the controversy is geared towards preventing voter fraud.
As Breitbart’s Warner Todd Huston reports:
The new law was praised by Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson, who said, ‘Reforms to make voter ID requirements and early voting access more consistent statewide, modernize the state’s voting rolls, and ensure robust oversight of voting and elections will protect Georgia’s votes and make the state a model for the rest of the country.’
However, liberals have attacked the state’s new law aimed at tightening the overly loose rules governing state elections that sent the state into chaos during the 2020 elections. The left is riling supporters by mischaracterizing the law as ‘voter suppression’ and even calling it ‘white supremacy.’
Nonetheless, on Friday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced his decision that the league would remove its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta in response to the state of Georgia’s decision to reform its voting laws.
“Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, the Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views. I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft,” Manfred wrote.
Atlanta, a majority-black city, will lose out on tens of millions of dollars due to MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game.
However, as the New York Post reports, Chuck Schumer may want to “think twice” before holding New York State up as some voting rights utopia.
According to the Post:
New York offers eight days fewer of early voting than Georgia, and requires an excuse to request an absentee ballot.
Georgia, on the contrary, does not.
Democrats expressed outrage after the bill banned the distribution of food and water to voters within 150 feet of their polling places.
Under current law in New York, passing out of food and water is prohibited unless the items are under $1 in value.
MLB has not said where they will hold the 2021 All-Star Game.