ATLANTA — After their anti-voter legislation was tepidly critiqued by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce before its rushed passage through the state legislature, state Republican leaders are running away from Georgia employers — and “looking for an apology” — after they wasted a state legislative session focusing on voter suppression instead of helping small businesses and families recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

From Day One, Georgia Republicans like House Speaker David Ralston and Brian Kemp have put their partisan voter suppression agenda ahead of Georgia small businesses and Georgia workers. Amid the fallout from this disastrous law that transfers “unprecedented” amounts of power to the partisan state legislature while criminalizing handing out water to voters and eliminating 11 mandatory early voting days for federal runoff elections, among other changes, Georgia Republicans caused the state to lose $100 million after the MLB All-Star Game pulled out of Georgia as result of this draconian bill.

But even after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote a scathing editorial warning that “there may be a political and economic price to be paid for Georgia lawmakers’ contemptuous stance toward making voting reasonably accessible to all who are legally able to do so,” Georgia Republicans have not backed off their disastrous anti-voter agenda. Instead, they’re still pushing election conspiracy theories as GOP leaders — including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — back a sham ballot review built around “sowing doubts in elections” following the Big Lie surrounding the 2020 election.

“While Georgians are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans are wasting time whining about any criticism of their anti-voter agenda as they continue to put voter suppression ahead of Georgia’s economy and Georgia workers,” said Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo. “Georgia voters are the ones who are owed an apology after GOP leaders spent the legislative session ignoring pressing issues facing our state to instead pass legislation restricting access to the ballot box and taking power away from local and state elections officials to seize it for themselves. Anyone interested in fighting back against Georgia Republicans’ reckless anti-voter push can go to StopJimCrow2.com to learn more about combating the GOP’s growing attacks on voting rights.”