Companies oppose voting restrictions in New York Times ad

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman, Alexis Christoforous and Kristin Myers discuss CEOs signing statement opposing voting restrictions.

Video transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: CEOs of some major US companies have signed a new statement opposing, quote, "any discriminatory legislation that would make it harder for people to vote." And they published it in a two-page ad that appeared in "The New York Times" today. Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman is here with those details. And Rick, these are some big companies and including Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, Netflix, Target, some other big companies like that, Warren Buffet. Now interestingly, Warren Buffett signed on his own behalf. He signed his name, but he did not sign on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway. And then there were some big companies that were not involved with this, such as Coca-Cola and Delta, which are both based in Georgia, which has been the first state to pass a new restrictive voting law.

So, I'm not sure what difference this is going to make. This is, as far as we know, is a one-time thing. And they're not attacking any particular legislation. They're not even mentioning the states where this is happening. And those states happen to be Georgia, which has already passed a law. And then in Florida, Texas, Michigan, and some other states, they are considering legislation similar to the Georgia law.

So this ad or this statement does not even mention those states. And it does not target any particular piece of legislation. It just has a few fairly generic statements, such as democracy is really important. We should all defend the right to vote. And we should all oppose any legislation or any other effort to make it harder to vote. So, this is some CEOs-- basically, I think they're just trying to say, we are paying attention to what's going on. There may be some more interesting conversations happening behind the scenes that involve political donations companies make to candidates and things like that. That is not contained in this particular statement, however.

KRISTIN MYERS: Yeah, Rick, all told, about 43 states around the country are considering in some form pieces of this legislation that folks are saying are restrictive or are going to suppress the vote. I kind of want to ask your opinion there a little bit, if you think that some of these executives, frankly, are just paying lip service to this movement, that we've been seeing the backlash that companies like Delta faced, calling for boycotts because they stayed relatively silent for a little bit too long, as folks were saying, after Georgia passed those bills, if you think perhaps some of these companies are going to put a little bit of money where their mouth is and some lobbying dollars behind these efforts.

RICK NEWMAN: I think it's a mix of both, Kristin. So you do have a few Black CEOs who seem to be driving this effort right now. In fact, the group is called the Black Economic Alliance. And they have a website, blackeconomicalliance.org. And that group did not form just for this. That group has been together since, I think, sometime last year to guide CEOs through some of the electoral issues. So they're driving this.

But I think it's also pretty obvious that there are a lot of other companies that don't want anything to do with this, either pro or con. They don't feel it's their business. And the only reason that they're getting dragged into this is that they happen to be consumer-facing companies with customers. And they happen to be located in some of these states where this is going on.

And customers are the ones saying, hey, Coca-Cola, hey, Delta Airlines, hey, Dell Computer, you are based in a state. You employ a lot of people. You have some heft and some leverage in these states. Why don't you do something about this? So I think those companies would rather stay on the sidelines, but because their customers are raising the specter of boycotts and other things like that, and so these companies are kind of responding after the fact.

I think a better approach for some of these companies would to be more aware of what's going on before it actually gets enacted into law and anticipate that they're going to have to deal with this and maybe say to some of these legislators they donate to or something, what are you guys thinking? You know, you're creating a headache for us, and you're making our whole state look bad. Why are you doing this? Maybe put it in your pocket and save it for another day.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see if this amounts to anything at the end of the day, more than lip service. Rick Newman, thanks so much.