Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies and executives signed on to a new statement released on Wednesday opposing "any discriminatory legislation" that would make it harder for people to vote.

It was the biggest show of solidarity so far by the business community as companies around the country try to navigate the partisan uproar over Republican efforts to enact new election rules in almost every state. Senior Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, have called for companies to stay out of politics.

The statement was organized in recent days by Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck. A copy appeared on Wednesday in advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Last month, with only a few big companies voicing opposition to a restrictive new voting law in Georgia, Mr. Chenault and Mr. Frazier led a group of Black executives in calling on companies to get more involved in opposing similar legislation around the country.

As the debate over voting legislation intensifies, many companies do not want to feel pressured to take stands on specific legislation, state by state.

JPMorgan Chase also declined to sign the statement despite a personal request from senior Black business leaders to the chief executive, Jamie Dimon, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Dimon has publicly declared that he supports Black Lives Matter and made a statement on voting rights before many other companies, saying, "We believe voting must be accessible and equitable."

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the bank said, "We publicly made our own strong statement last month about the critical importance of every citizen being able to exercise their fundamental right to vote."

That statement released on Wednesday came together over the past week and a half, after the Black executives who spoke out received an outpouring of support.

About 10 days ago, Mr. Chenault and Mr. Frazier conferred with three other Black executives — William M. Lewis Jr., the chairman of investment banking at Lazard; Clarence Otis Jr., a former chief executive of Darden Restaurants; and Charles Phillips, a former chief executive of Infor — about what next steps they could take. Within days, they had a draft of the statement and were sharing it with other executives.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Frazier and Mr. Chenault spoke with members of the Business Roundtable, an influential lobbying group that includes the chief executives of many of the company's biggest companies. Sherrilyn A. Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., also spoke to the group.

Then on Thursday, someone from Mr. McConnell's staff, at the group's invitation, briefed its members on the details of the Georgia law, several people familiar with the situation said.

The next day, members of the Business Roundtable had a regularly scheduled meeting at which the executives discussed the voting issue. On that call, Dan Schulman, the chief executive of PayPal, encouraged other executives to sign the statement.

And on Saturday, Mr. Chenault and Mr. Frazier spoke on a Zoom meeting with more than 100 executives that was organized by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who regularly gathers business leaders to discuss politics. At that meeting, Mr. Chenault read the statement and invited executives on the call to add their names to the list of signatories.

Many companies were quick to do so. But in some cases, chief executives were willing to sign the statement personally while keeping their company's name off the list. One of them was Mr. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway. He has long contended that businesses should not be involved in politics but also said at the company's annual meeting in 2018 that he did not put his political views "in a blind trust at all when I took the job."

Some companies, including some that signed the statement, asked for the removal of a sentence that committed them "to oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot." Mr. Chenault and Mr. Frazier said the line was crucial, and it remained.

"Throughout our history, corporations have spoken up on different issues," Mr. Chenault said. "It's absolutely the responsibility of companies to speak up, particularly on something as fundamental as the right to vote."

The debate over voting legislation has become an all-consuming issue for the business community as Republicans in almost every state advance election legislation.

As Michigan's Senate prepares to hold hearings on a package of voting bills, the chief executives of 30 of the state's largest companies, including Ford Motor, G.M. and Quicken Loans, released a joint statement on Tuesday declaring their opposition to changes in the state's election laws that would make voting more difficult.

In a separate statement on Twitter, G.M. said, "We are calling on Michigan lawmakers and state legislatures across the nation to ensure that any changes to voting laws result in protecting and enhancing the most precious element of democracy."

It concluded, "Anything less falls short of our inclusion and social justice goals."

In Texas, where two omnibus bills that would introduce voting restrictions are working their way through the Legislature, more big companies reiterated their opposition to restrictive new voting laws.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which is based in Houston, said in a statement: "We categorically oppose any legislation that unfairly seeks to restrict the right of our team members or any American to vote in fair, accessible and secure elections."

And in Arizona, activists and labor groups have begun calling on companies with large presences in the state, including CVS, Allstate, Farmers Insurance and Enterprise Holdings, to publicly oppose legislation that could limit voting access.

Georgia was the first state to pass a restrictive new voting law, and the fallout continued this week. On Monday, a film starring Will Smith and financed by Apple pulled its production out of the state because of the law. That followed Major League Baseball's decision to move its All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver.

Walmart's chief executive, Doug McMillon, who is chairman of the Business Roundtable and declined to sign the letter, told Walmart employees in a detailed note this week that many of the voting bills across the country were "both a mix of positive reforms that enjoy bipartisan support, along with other changes seemingly designed to create advantage for one party."

While he is not going to use the company's voice on this issue, Mr. McMillon said, "we do want to be clear that we believe broad participation and trust in the election process are vital to its integrity."

David Gelles and Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, April 14, 2021 updated April 16, 2021

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April 16, 2021

Voices4America Post Script. Keep the pressure on companies and people to #StopGOPVoterSuppresion.Thank these CEOs and thank MLB and Will Smith for walking out of GA. Share this post! #BlackLivesMatter #BlackVotesMatter #SupportDemocracy

This is from Ross Sorkin's Deal Book today.

First,

Then, the overview

A big show of corporate solidarity

Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies and executives have signed a new statement opposing "any discriminatory legislation" that would make it harder for people to vote. The statement, which ran as a two-page ad in The Times, comes amid a flurry of voting-related proposals from Republicans that have generated competing calls for corporations to take a stand and to stay out of politics lest lawmakers retaliate, David Gelles and Andrew write in The Times. And just as notable as the names who signed the statement are those that didn't.

The statement represents the broadest coalition yet to weigh in on the issue, coming after few big companies spoke up before a restrictive voting law passed in Georgia last month. "For American democracy to work for any of us, we must ensure the right to vote for all of us," it reads in part. The statement came together over the past week and a half, organized by Ken Chenault, a former C.E.O. of AmEx, and Ken Frazier, the C.E.O. of Merck.

• The statement says that the signers should "oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot," a phrase that some wanted to remove, but which Mr. Chenault and Mr. Frazier considered crucial.

There are some notable omissions. Many companies declined to sign the statement, and some executives, such as Mr. Buffett, signed for themselves but not on behalf of their companies. Coca-Cola and Delta, which spoke out about the Georgia law after it was passed, declined to add their names, perhaps fearing more blowback for earlier statements and also not feeling the need to speak again. JPMorgan Chase also declined to sign the statement despite a personal request from senior Black business leaders to Jamie Dimon, who made a statement on voting rights before.

Why didn't Walmart sign? Doug McMillon, the retailer's C.E.O., who also chairs the influential Business Roundtable lobby group, sent a note to employees to explain the company's position. "We are not in the business of partisan politics," he wrote. "While our government relations teams have historically focused on core business issues like tax policy or government regulation, Walmart and other major employers are increasingly being asked to weigh in on broader societal issues such as civil rights." The company didn't sign the statement, but "we do want to be clear that we believe broad participation and trust in the election process are vital to its integrity," Mr. McMillon said.