President Joe Biden said it is up to the parent company of the Masters to decide whether to move the country’s most famous golf tournament out of Georgia as he again criticized what he called the state’s new “Jim Crow” voting law.
He praised companies like Major League Baseball for taking a stand after this year’s All-Star Game was removed from Atlanta and shifted to Colorado.
The issue has triggered a new front in the country’s culture wars, as the likes of former President Donald Trump and an army of Republicans and conservatives have called for boycotts of companies that oppose what they see as reforms designed to prevent election fraud. Those very laws altering election practices have been crafted by GOP state lawmakers.
But on Tuesday, Biden signaled he was not backing down on his opposition to Georgia’s new law while also acknowledging how low-wage earners would take a financial hit if the tournament was moved.
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“I think that’s up to the Masters,” he told reporters. “It is reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up about how these new Jim Crow laws are just antithetical to who we are.
“There’s another side to it to. The other side to it, too, is when they, in fact, move out of Georgia, people who need the help the most, people who are making hourly wages, sometimes get hurt the most,” Biden said.
He added that he respected the judgment of companies that decided not to stay in the state.
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“But the best way to deal with this is for Georgia and other states to smarten up, stop it, stop it,” he told reporters after delivering remarks on the COVID-19 vaccination effort. “It’s about getting people to vote.”
The Masters is owned by Augusta National, the same company that owns its host course, Augusta National Golf Club, which complicates how the parent company would find a financial incentive to share any profits with the owners of a comparable, championship-level course.
