Salon: Big corporations that claim to support voting rights are still funding right-wing state AGs

Major corporations that have publicly touted their support for voting rights amid the nationwide Republican crackdown on ballot access are still funding many Republican state attorneys general who are working to scuttle federal voting rights legislation.

Leaders of companies like General Motors, Coca-Cola and Home Depot denounced the Republican onslaught of voting restrictions in states like Georgia earlier this year. But those companies and others have kept on funding Republican attorneys general who urged congressional leaders to block the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a proposed law that would restore a section of the Voting Rights Act — recently gutted by the Supreme Court — requiring states with a history of racial discrimination to pre-clear new voting changes with the Justice Department.

That also came after an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association sent robocalls on Jan. 5 of this year, urging supporters to come to Washington to “fight” Congress in support of former President Donald Trump’s election lies. The following day, of course, pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The group also received $150,000 from a major Republican donor who helped fund the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riot. …

The House in August voted 219-212 along party lines to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Senate Democrats formally introduced the bill earlier this month but the bill is expected to face a Republican filibuster. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is the only Republican who has expressed support for the bill, and at least nine more GOP votes would be required to break the filibuster.

“Voting rights should never be a partisan issue, and for decades it wasn’t,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the nonpartisan good-government group Common Cause, said in a statement. “Many current GOP senators have backed strong voting rights protections in the past. In fact, 10 current Republican senators voted for the Voting Rights Act reauthorization when it passed the Senate 98-0 in 2006, only one week after it was passed by the House. If 10 Senate Republicans will not support this bill, then Senate Democrats must reform the filibuster.”