On the heels of a business advocacy group filing a $100 million lawsuit against Major League Baseball (MLB) for moving its 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta, a former attorney general filed a brief in support.
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, a fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a Reagan administration member, filed an amicus brief Monday in New York. The effort was brought about by The Job Creators Network, which announced its federal suit against the MLB, the player’s union, union executive director Tony Clark, and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in June for the league relocating its game.
“MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta – many of them minority-owned – of $100 million, we want the game back where it belongs. This was a knee-jerk, hypocritical, and illegal reaction to misinformation about Georgia’s new voting law which includes Voter-ID,” said Job Creators Network President Alfredo Ortiz in a statement prior.
“Major League Baseball itself requests ID at will-call ticket windows at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and at ballparks all across the country,” Ortiz said.
Within 48 hours of President Joe Biden announcing he would “strongly support” the league boycotting the city of Atlanta, MLB took action. Meese argues in the brief, which was filed with the non-profit organization American Constitutional Rights Union, that the bill in question does not legitimately violate voter rights like leftist-backed institutions claim.
SB 202’s provisions requiring voter ID and establishing procedural safeguards are consistent with voting rights,” the brief states. “Free and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government … Georgia is acting pursuant to its regulatory interests, identifying election features and procedures that the 2020 election showed to be insufficient, and augmenting the state’s election framework to remedy those aspects of the Peach State’s election process. Georgia’s statutory measures are designed to instill confidence in the results of its elections.”
Ortiz estimated that the MLB pulling its game will cost Georgia $100 million. Democrats have continued to take issue with the law, which mandates voter identification for absentee ballots and bars poll workers from passing out water to voters waiting in line.
