Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp is celebrating the return of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game to Atlanta after the league launched a boycott of the Peach State over its 2021 voter integrity law.
MLB canceled its scheduled use of the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park for the 2021 All-Star Game after the state passed its voter integrity law. The law placed new restrictions on mail-in voting, cut down on ballot drop boxes, and instituted voter ID rules. Critics called the law “Jim Crow on steroids” at the time and said it would somehow prevent minorities from voting. Their fear-mongering did not pan out that way, of course.
Now, MLB is relenting and ending its block on Georgia.
Kemp says that the league has now “righted” the wrong it perpetrated against Georgia.
“We’re excited about the game finally being here. It should have been here several years ago. They never should have pulled it to start with, but thankfully the game’s coming back,” the Gov. told Fox & Friends on Monday.
“It’s good for the Braves organization. It’s good for all the vendors and small business people in and around the ballpark and in the city of Atlanta, up in Cobb County, and really for our whole state,” he added.
When he canceled the game in 2021, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred claimed that it was all about “values,” and insisted canceling the game was “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.”
But Kemp says that the league had no idea what was really in the bill, and they let the overhyping of the left-wing media guide them.
“They didn’t know what was in the bill, and we did, and we stood our ground, and we stood for our values of having secure, accessible, and fair elections in Georgia and making it easy to vote and hard to cheat, and they were just wrong on this issue…” Kemp exclaimed.
“It’s really a tragedy it [pulling the game] ever happened. But, in some ways, it helped galvanize our state. It helped to galvanize our local community for people to say, ‘You know what? We’re tough Georgians, we’re going to fight through this, we’re not going to bow down to corporate greed or corporate boardrooms that are worried about getting targeted by groups like Stacey Abrams,” he said.
The 2025 All-Star Game is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, July 15.
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