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Good morning and welcome to Q2. David Meyer here in Berlin, filling in for Alan.
After some prodding, the U.S. business community yesterday came out in force to decry Georgia’s newly enacted voting law, which tightens identification requirements for mail-in ballots, cuts early voting times for runoffs, allows counties to limit voting times to the times most hourly wage earners will be at work, and bans people from giving food or water to voters waiting in line.
Let’s start with these quotes from an Black Economic Alliance ad in the New York Times, with signatories including Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and former VEON CEO Ursula Burns:
“Sadly, at this very moment, the fundamental tenets of our democracy are under assault by forces that seek to take this country backwards…The new law and others like it are both undemocratic and un-American, and they are wrong…The disproportionate racial impact of these allegedly ‘neutral laws’ should neither be overlooked nor excused.
“As Black business leaders, we cannot sit silently in the face of this gathering threat to our nation’s democratic values and allow the fundamental right of Americans, to cast their votes for whomever they choose, to be trampled upon yet again…We call upon our colleagues in Corporate America to join us in taking a non-partisan stand for equality and democracy.”
That was swiftly followed by a supportive LinkedIn post by current American Express CEO Steve Squeri. An excerpt:
“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. Ensuring equal and easy access to vote, for all those who are eligible to participate in each state, is critical to upholding the principles our country was founded upon. Unfairly limiting that right is wrong.”
Here’s the Business Roundtable:
“The right to vote is the essence of a democratic society, and the voice of every voter should be heard in fair elections that are conducted with integrity. Unnecessary restrictions on the right to vote strike at the heart of representative government. Business Roundtable members believe state laws must safeguard and guarantee the right to vote.
“Over the course of our nation’s history, the right to vote was hard fought for so many Americans, particularly women and people of color. We call on elected officials across the country to commit to bipartisan efforts to provide greater access to voting and encourage broad voter participation.”
And finally, here’s Delta CEO Ed Bastian, trying again after his previous comments last week were seen as overly tepid, and a boycott of his Atlanta-based company loomed:
“The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections…I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.”
More news below.
David Meyer
@superglaze
david.meyer@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Infrastructure reaction
Business groups also opined yesterday on President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan, welcoming the idea of improving public infrastructure…but not so much the corporate tax hikes (the main rate would rise from 21% to 28%) needed to pay for it. The Business Roundtable said the increases would create "new barriers to job creation and economic growth," the Chamber of Commerce said the tax proposal was "dangerously misguided," and the National Association of Manufacturers said the hikes would "turn back the clock to the archaic tax policies that gave other countries an advantage over America." Fortune
J&J mix-up
Fifteen million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses have been affected by a manufacturing error at a Baltimore plant that makes an ingredient for the J&J jab. None of the doses have shipped in the U.S., or even advanced to the filling and finishing stages, but the incident might affect the U.S.'s inoculation drive to some degree. Fortune
French lockdown
Buffeted by a third wave of the pandemic, France has intensified its lockdown to include a month-long shutdown of schools. President Emmanuel Macron made the move after being heavily criticized for dithering over how to combat the spread of the B.1.1.7 virus variant, which has become dominant in France. Fortune
Russian software
A new Russian law has come into effect that says smartphones, computers and other smart devices sold in the country need to come pre-installed with software from Russian IT companies. The law is known in Russia as "the law against Apple"—to comply with it, Apple has agreed to offer users a selection of Russian apps when they are activating new devices. Reuters
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Vaccine exports
Pfizer VP Danny Hendrikse has criticized the EU's vaccine export controls, which in Pfizer's case mean the company must notify the Belgian government every time it plans to export doses from its facilities there. "It has caused a significant administrative burden and some uncertainty," he said. Meanwhile, Japan is sourcing its first doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine from U.S. plants rather than from Europe, because of EU authorities' particular targeting of AstraZeneca exports. Times of London
WTO head
The World Trade Organization's new director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has called for more voluntary COVID vaccine licensing agreements such as that struck between AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India. Okonjo-Iweala also acknowledged that the WTO's membership is split over the issue of whether WTO IP rules should be temporarily relaxed to boost global vaccine production. BBC
Hong Kong tycoons
Hong Kong's tycoons have had a lot of their power over local politics snatched away from them by President Xi's sweeping electoral reforms. The likes of Li Ka-shing and Lee Shau-kee have lost more than 10% of their votes in the 1,200-member election committee (which decides Hong Kong's chief executive) to smaller businesses and mainland Chinese companies, and the committee is also being padded out by Beijing loyalists. Bloomberg
La La Bitcoin
Seasoned promoter La La Anthony is into Bitcoin, and she explained why to Fortune's Shawn Tully: "It will take the place of the traditional dollar, and it's the new gold, but better because its price will go to a place that's unimaginable… I hear between $150,000 and $200,000…The alarm will ring when the price is so high that people don't see it going any higher. That's when I start selling." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
