Big law firms join corporate fight to protect voting rights

Firms will try to identify laws they may fight in court.

As corporate America continues to push back against a wave of restrictive voting laws under discussion across the United States, Big Law is joining the fight.

A coalition of 60 major law firms has come together “to challenge voter suppression legislation and to support national legislation to protect voting rights and increase voter participation,” said Brad Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss and organizer of the group, which has not been formally announced. Karp said the coalition would “emphatically denounce legislative efforts to make voting harder, not easier, for all eligible voters, by imposing unnecessary obstacles and barriers on the right to vote.”

Many of Wall Street’s most powerful firms are also part of the effort, including Simpson Thacher; Skadden Arps; Akin Gump; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Ropes & Gray Sullivan & Cromwell; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

“We plan to challenge any election law that would impose unnecessary barriers on the right to vote and the would

disenfranchise underrepresented groups in our country,” Karp said.

The firms will work with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization, to identify laws that it might challenge in court. Karp said that could include challenging the voting law that Republicans passed in Georgia last month and which set off a national debate over voting rights.

“It puts legislators on notice that if there are laws that are unconstitutional or illegal, they will face pushback from the legal community,” said Brennan Center President Michael Waldman. “This is beyond the pale. You’re hearing that from the business community, and you’re hearing it from the legal community.”

On Saturday afternoon, more than 100 corporate leaders attended a Zoom meeting to discuss what they should do, if anything, to shape the debate around voting rights.

On the call, organized by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who regularly gathers executives to discuss politics, several senior business leaders spoke forcefully about the need for companies to use their clout to oppose new state legislation that would make it harder to vote.

The voting-rights debate is fraught for companies, putting them at the center of an ever more heated partisan battle.

“CEOS are grappling right now with what to do and how to respond,” said Leadership Now CEO Daniella Ballou-aares, who helped organize the call. “There is a lot of confusion.”

But beyond making statements, business leaders are at a loss over what they can do to influence policy decisions made by GOP lawmakers.

Merck CEO Ken Frazier has urged execs to get behind wider ballot access.