BRAZOS VALLEY, TX — The Texas Senate recently approved Senate Bill 7. This bill affecting voting restrictions is causing politics and baseball to collide.
In the first week of April, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would prevent election offices to proactively send out ballots by mail, limiting voting hours and banning drive-through voting.
“The legislation is part of a nationwide push in order to address some of the concerns that were raised in the 2020 election about the integrity of the electoral process,” said Political Science professor from Texas A&M, Kirby Goidel.
Those who support this bill are very adamant about protecting the integrity of Democracy.
”The argument is pretty straight forward it’s about election security, this is about making sure that when people cast the ballot that the ballot is legal and that it’s valid,” Goidel explained.
In March Governor Abbott made his stance on this topic clear pushing this bill as an emergency in this legislative session.
“Election fraud is unacceptable and that’s exactly why I made it an emergency, out in this session,” said Governor Abbott.
According to political science professor Kirby Goidel, there has not been any evidence to support the claims that there were fraudulent ballots in the state of Texas during the 2020 election.
“Restrictions, even minor changes in voting that make less convenient can have really profound impacts in terms of who votes,” Goidel said.
Many who oppose this bill fear adding restrictions can discourage voters.
Marketing specialist Alina Sorescu shared data from a former A&M student's research on corporate social-political activism where she found the stock market did not respond well when looking at it their short term.
”On average if you look at how investors react to companies, taking a particular political or social-political stance, investors react negatively,” said Alina Sorescu, Professor at Mays Business School at Texas A&M.
Large corporations and organizations like the MLB and American airlines have also called out this bill and similar ones to it.
“I think we’re going to see more of that and I know not everybody likes it, but a lot of customers and employees and stakeholders demand it," added Sorescu. "I think corporate social-political activism is here to stay,”
American Airlines stated as a Texas-based business, they strongly oppose this bill and expressed that voting is the fundamental foundation of our democracy that many have fought to preserve their rights to exercise.
Governor Abbott refused to throw the ceremonial first pitch the Texas ranger home opening game as he expressed his disapproval of the MLB's move to remove the all-star game from Atlanta in response to their election integrity laws recently passed.
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