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Police order to hold back riot-control weapons compromised Capitol, inspector general tells House panel

InternationalApr 16. 2021

By The Washington Post · Karoun Demirjian

WASHINGTON – An order to hold back heavy riot-control weapons left Capitol Police at a grave disadvantage as front-line officers, vastly outnumbered, fought to protect Congress from a violent mob Jan. 6, the force’s inspector general told lawmakers Thursday, as he urged an overhaul of campus security.

Inspector General Michael Bolton told the House Administration Committee that a deputy assistant chief of police instructed officers not to use the weapons – including stingballs and 40mm launchers – out of concern that “they could potentially cause life-altering injury and/or death, if they were misused in any way.” Bolton did not identify the chief, but he said that had officers employed such measures, “it certainly would have helped us that day to enhance our ability to protect the Capitol.”

“The takeaway from that is, let’s provide the training to our officers so they are used appropriately,” Bolton said, later adding: “Training deficiencies put officers. . . in a position not to succeed.”

More than a half-dozen congressional committees and one task force appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have opened inquiries into how law enforcement missed warning signals and failed to hold back the insurrection, during which thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters invaded the Capitol campus in a deadly but failed bid to prevent Congress from certifying President Biden’s election win. But Bolton’s investigation, projected to continue for several more months, is expected to produce the most comprehensive analysis of how inadequate training and intelligence-gathering and operational “deficiencies” allowed the Capitol’s first line of defense to be overrun.

To date, the inspector general has produced two interim reports for Congress detailing investigators’ preliminary findings, including that the force lacked the security clearances needed to properly assess warnings that the Capitol might come under attack. He also determined that the Capitol Police had incomplete records of the personnel and equipment on hand to respond to civil disturbances – and that many of the officers did not know how to use the crowd-control weapons at their disposal.

During Thursday’s hearing, Bolton was emphatic that the Capitol Police would have to undertake sweeping procedural changes in order to be prepared for future threats to the Capitol and Congress. He also called for a “cultural change,” arguing that the force must move away from the “traditional posture of a police department,” and start acting instead like “a protection agency” focused not on responding to disturbances, but on preventing events like the Jan. 6 riot.

The hearing came as lawmakers are readying a supplemental spending package to pay for reforms and enhancements to campus security. Many are based on recommendations from former Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, whom Pelosi tasked earlier this year to conduct an evaluation. His team’s draft report, released last month, recommended an expansion of the campus police force, and construction of mobile and retractable fencing around the Capitol to be deployed in emergencies.

Pelosi told reporters during a Thursday news conference that she had received a draft of the House Appropriations Committee’s proposal to apportion funds for stepped-up security measures, including plans “to harden the windows, the doors and the rest.”

But when the inspector general was asked Thursday where Congress should be spending its money, Bolton focused on a different answer: training.

“If you want to invest dollars, that’s the place to invest it: training,” he said, lamenting that for too long, police training had been treated as an afterthought to other measures.

Bolton specifically raised lapses in the department’s Civil Disturbance Unit, or CDU, to highlight how a lack of training directly affected the Jan. 6 response. The Capitol Police CDUfunctions as “an ad hoc unit,” he said, instead of a permanent force with specialized skills.

He called for Congress to adopt incentives to attract officers to the high-risk job, and to build a force that is prepared to respond to potentially riotous crowds and threats to the Capitol.

“To be truly effective, you have to have that continuous training,” he testified. “They need to have a stand-alone unit, whatever size the department deems appropriate, and that’s their full-time job.”

Bolton also emphasized that improving the Capitol Police’s capacity to gather, analyze and assess intelligence is vital for responding to future threats.

“We need an intelligence bureau, . . . a full-service, comprehensive bureau,” he said. Bolton has also called for ensuring that civilians and officers tasked to intelligence-gathering operations obtain top-secret clearances, which not all employees currently have.

Bolton is not the first official to call for an overhaul of training, staffing, communications and intelligence operations. In recent weeks, Congress has heard about law enforcement failures and errors from the Capitol Police’s former chief, Steven A. Sund, the current acting chief, Yogananda D. Pittman, and the former Senate and House sergeants at arms who resigned after the riot, Michael Stenger and Paul Irving, respectively.

None of those officials has yet spoken with the House Administration Committee – a fact Republicans criticized in their remarks Thursday.

“This is the first hearing that the chair has called on January 6, more than three months after the attack,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., the panel’s ranking member, complaining that they had “skipped a step” by not having first called in officials who made the decisions leading up to Jan. 6.

Sund, the former police chief, has accused the two sergeants at arms of refusing his requests to call in the National Guard as a backup force before the riot. Under current rules, the police chief must seek permission from the Capitol Police Board, composed of the sergeants at arms and the Architect of the Capitol, before deploying additional resources in response to emergencies.

Davis insisted that any review of the Capitol Police that sidestepped scrutiny of the Board would be incomplete. Bolton answers to the Capitol Police board and does not have jurisdiction over them.

“I’ve said for a long time that an overhaul of the Board is needed,” Davis said, complaining that the committee’s probe was not satisfactorily bipartisan. He promised to release “a series of short reports” of his own.

The Administration Committee, made up of six Democrats and three Republicans, is one of at least five House panels that have launched probes into aspects of the Capitol riot, with still others examining questions surrounding forms of domestic extremism that were highlighted by the attack. But most of those inquiries have been slow to get underway.

Many lawmakers expected that such committee-level inquiries would quickly be overshadowed by an independent, 9/11-style commission, a concept that had seemed to have strong bipartisan support in the attack’s immediate aftermath but now has stalled in the face of political disputes over the scope of its authority.

In the Senate, a joint investigation between the committees on Rules and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has made more headway, with a report documenting the failures that led to the mayhem on Jan. 6 expected to be completed next month, according to various aides familiar with its progress.

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Texas blackout scare renews call to rein in unruly power market

InternationalApr 16. 2021A worker repairs a power line in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 18, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Thomas Ryan Allison.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Josh Saul, Mark Chediak

It didn’t take a heat wave or freak winter storm this time to raise the specter of rolling blackouts in Texas. All it took was a mild spring day.

The fact that the state’s power system, serving nearly 30 million people, made an urgent plea for conservation with temperatures in the 80s Fahrenheit is prompting fresh questions about the need for reform less than two months after February’s deadly blackouts.

“It’s a disgrace for a power grid in modern times to struggle to keep the lights on during a mild day,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. “We’ll be in trouble when a summer heat wave comes in and demand is one-and-a-half times as much as it was yesterday.”

Texas has long taken a laissez-faire approach to its power grid, allowing market forces — rather than regulations — ensure there’s enough power on hand to satisfy demand. State lawmakers have been reluctant to buck that philosophy as they consider legislation to address the problems that led to February’s crisis. Yet without changes, unpredictable weather will continue to beget chaos, experts warn.

“The reality is the market is designed to operate with very thin reserve margins,” said Katie Bays, an analyst at FiscalNote Markets. “And weather unpredictability combined with a white-knuckle approach is going to produce volatility.”

This week’s brush with outages stemmed largely from human error: grid operators misjudged the weather.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s grid, had counted on a mild cold front sweeping the state to lower demand for power. It didn’t happen. As a result, demand on the grid was about 3,000 megawatts higher than anticipated — or the equivalent of 600,000 homes.

Normally, additional power plants would kick in to make up the shortfall. But about 25% were off line for repairs to gear up for summer, when plant owners make the bulk of their money selling electricity to satisfy Texas’s insatiable demand for air conditioning.

Unlike other U.S. grid operators, Texas doesn’t have a capacity market that pays generators to be available in order to meet expected demand. Instead, the Texas market is designed for wholesale prices to spike when supplies get tight in order to encourage power producers to come online. That approach allowed prices to surge to $9,000 a megawatt-hour during the last crisis, which pushed many companies into default and has left the power market in ongoing financial distress.

“It further highlights the need for Ercot reform and it’ll put a fire under legislators’ butts,” said Josh Price, an analyst for Height Capital Markets.

Lawmakers are considering a series of measures in response to February’s blackouts. One bill would require power plants to prepare better for cold weather. Another would ban retail electricity providers from exposing customers to the volatility of wholesale power prices. And other measures would require renewable generators to buy reliability services, increasing their financial burden. But a bill that would create a capacity market hasn’t budged.

“The legislature has been trying to take a hands-off approach to Ercot and assume that the fundamentals of the market will solve the underlying issue,” Bays said.

Texas lawmakers advanced several power bills on Wednesday. The Senate passed a measure that would force renewable generators to shore up their ability to deliver supplies, while a House committee approved a proposal that would permit co-operatives, municipal utilities and power companies to sell debt to cover huge obligations racked up during the crisis, according to a note sent out by Price. Any bills would have to be passed by both chambers to become law.

Texas ranks last among U.S. regional power networks when it comes to reserve capacity, according to the North American Reliability Corporation, which oversees grids in the U.S., Canada and parts of northern Mexico. Ercot has failed to meet its own target reserve of 13.75% for the past three years, according to the agency.

An Ercot spokeswoman said it was speculative to say whether or not a higher reserve margin would have resulted in different outcomes from the winter storm.

Weather doesn’t usually have a big impact on electricity demand in spring and fall. Those are the so-called shoulder seasons when customers are neither cranking their heaters nor blasting their air conditioners.

On Tuesday, temperatures in Dallas, Brownsville and Houston were moderately higher than normal, reaching or exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius). That, combined with a dearth of generation, prompted Ercot to ask for conservation for almost four hours.

The real test could come this summer. While Ercot said last month it expects to have adequate supplies for the season despite anticipated record peak demand, almost 75% of Texas is gripped by drought, and more than 91% is abnormally dry. Drought makes heat worse because the sun’s energy goes into warming the air rather than evaporating ground moisture.

“This doesn’t bode well for summer when they are already issuing these kind of alerts,” said Jim Rouiller, lead meteorologist at the Energy Weather Group. “The cold killed people. The heat will kill a lot more people.”

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Recovery quickens as U.S. retail sales soar, jobless claims ease

InternationalApr 16. 2021Shoppers wearing protective masks carry bags across Post Street in San Francisco on April 14, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Olivia Rockeman

The U.S. economy’s comeback is firing on all cylinders with employment, retail spending and manufacturing exhibiting strong gains.

Thursday’s barrage of economic data showed that some parts of the economy, like retail sales, have returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Applications for unemployment benefits, while still elevated, hit the lowest in 13 months.

The rebound reflected a wave of business reopenings last month, increased vaccination rates and a fresh round of stimulus checks to households. In addition, the bounce back follows a harsh winter and surge in Covid-19 cases in many parts of the U.S. that curbed activity.

U.S. retail sales accelerated in March by the most in 10 months, increasing 9.8% after declining in February. A separate report showed initial state jobless claims fell by almost 200,000 last week, partly reflecting a significant drop in California.

Other reports Thursday showed strength in manufacturing too. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York index of factory activity in the state jumped to the highest level since 2017. A Philadelphia Fed manufacturing gauge improved to the strongest reading since 1973.

Additionally, production at U.S. factories increased in March by the most in eight months following the weather-related setback in February.

U.S. stocks rose to record highs and Treasury yields fell as investors cheered the data and earnings reports.

While the economy has shown signs of roaring back, Fed officials have cautioned in recent days that the U.S. has a long road to recovery — with many Americans still out of work and the virus still percolating.

Initial jobless claims are more than double pre-pandemic levels and there are an estimated 8 million fewer jobs than in February 2020. The recovery has also been uneven, with the service industry hit the hardest, leaving many lower-income and minority Americans out of work.

The government’s retail sales report — which was better than expected — showed all 13 categories posting gains in March. The total value of sales in each category, with the exception of restaurants, are above where they were in February of last year.

Receipts at restaurants rose 13.4% in March, while sales at apparel retailers jumped 18.3% — both the strongest advances since June of last year.

“With consumers still sitting on a pile of accumulated savings combined with the expected reopening of the service economy this summer, our forecast looks for a consumer spending boom this year that will rival any in living memory for most Americans,” Tim Quinlan and Shannon Seery, economists at Wells Fargo Securities, said in a note.

Businesses that have been strong throughout the pandemic, including furniture outlets and building material merchants, experienced solid March sales. E-commerce sales also rebounded.

Ray Blanchette, chief executive officer of restaurant chain TGI Friday’s, said comparable sales, a key indicator in the restaurant industry, turned positive in March and April over 2019 figures.”Stimulus checks helped,” Blanchette said. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand. And when folks get out they want to enjoy themselves. In many cases, it’s the first time they’ve done it in some time.”

While federal stimulus payments provided a temporary spending boost in the month, their impact in the longer term remains to be seen. Reports in the coming months will show whether job growth and overall consumer confidence will be enough to allow for such huge monthly sales gains.

Further, as the economy continues to reopen, consumers may steer their spending away from merchandise and more toward travel and other services, which could lead to more moderate retail sales.

Gas station receipts rose 10.9%, at least in part reflecting higher fuel prices, which averaged $2.88 per gallon at the end of March, compared with $2.72 at the end of February. The retail figures aren’t adjusted for price changes.

Sales at car and motor vehicle parts dealers advanced 15.1% in March, even as automakers faced production constraints due to the global semiconductor shortage.

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Baghdad’s streets and squares are largely abandoned a year after youth revolution

InternationalApr 15. 2021The “I Love Tahrir” sign in Baghdad’s Tahrir square in January 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by Emilienne Malfatto

By Louisa Loveluck, Emilienne Malfatto
The Washington Post

BAGHDAD – It’s been more than a year since Iraqi protesters brought down their prime minister as part of the largest uprising in generations. Born in the shadow of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the young demonstrators who protested from Baghdad to Iraq’s southern cities had called for an end to the political system that the U.S. occupation installed. They wanted an end to corruption and sectarian politics that have left them with little hope of a future in their own country, they said. Their sloga

That dream was quashed with deadly force. More than 600 protesters were killed by Iraq’s security forces and militia groups. Thousands more were injured and still live with the scars. In May 2020, a new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, came to power vowing justice for the dead. But not a single member of Iraq’s security forces has been prosecuted, and most of the hardships that inspired Iraq’s protest movement have been worsened by an economic crisis that accompanied the country’s coronavirus epidemic.

Squares rarely fill with protesters these days, but public discontent rumbles on. Scattered demonstrations occur weekly outside government buildings, with people demanding jobs and services that a cash-strapped and inefficient Iraqi state cannot provide.

The “I Love Tahrir” sign in Baghdad’s Tahrir square in January 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by Emilienne Malfatto

Dozens of protesters have been shot dead by security forces over the past year. Activists have been disappeared by Iran-backed militia groups they dare to challenge, according to human rights monitors. Fearing for their lives, other young demonstrators have fled to Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, or abroad and to exile.

As spring temperatures start to climb, Iraqi officials worry in private that the country’s power grid will be unable to meet public demands during the sweltering summer months, bringing more protesters out to the streets. That could set the stage for another deadly confrontation.

Freelance photographer Emilienne Malfatto visited Baghdad’s protest sites in 2020, the height of the movement, and a year later. Here is her recounting.

– – –

The “I Love Tahrir” sign in Baghdad’s Tahrir square in January 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by Emilienne Malfatto

I glanced through the window as we drove by Tahrir Square. It felt terribly empty. The tents were gone. The tables with sweets, fruits and tea, also gone. And, above all, the joyful, naive effervescence – this belief that a “revolution” was happening for a “better Iraq” – that’s gone, too.

Replacing all of that was a sea of uniforms, olive green and dark blue, sometimes black. Young men standing on guard in what felt like a show of force. The message was clear: We’re here, we’re holding the place, and protesters are not coming back.

It was just a little over a year ago when I had last visited Tahrir Square. At that time, protests against the government and clashes with the police were a daily occurrence, with the square occupied by demonstrators calling for a change in governing policies. In another part of the city, at a pedestrian bridge near Muhammad Qassem highway, I had photographed a procession for a fallen protester as well as an intense confrontation between youths and police, the sky dark with the smoke of burning barricades.

The “I Love Tahrir” sign in Baghdad’s Tahrir square in January 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by Emilienne Malfatto

A year later, all I had seen has disappeared. It’s as if nothing ever happened there. The sky was gray, but from a sandstorm. The barricades and tents were replaced with plastic chairs on which soldiers rested their weapons. The place felt sad, like a missed opportunity, like the dream was over.

I could also see this transformation in the faces of the soldiers and policemen guarding these forgotten places of protest. A year ago, I had photographed the exhausted men and boys who led that revolution, their eyes reddened by tear gas, black stains covering their hands and faces as heavy smoke rose from burning tires. All of them said they had a reason to fight, a cause they believed in. A year later, the faces on Tahrir Square looked different. They were still young, but, with their uniforms and their shields, they represented the end of a movement, of hope.

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Public health experts increase vaccine education during Johnson & Johnson pause

InternationalApr 15. 2021

By Jenna Portnoy
The Washington Post

A day after federal agencies recommended a pause in administration of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine while they investigate potential rare side effects, public health experts and providers in the Washington region on Wednesday said they are increasing education and transparency to allay potential worries among people about coronavirus vaccines.

Community leaders and those in charge of vaccinating vulnerable populations said that the pause does not appear to have immediately deterred people who want to be vaccinated or have upcoming vaccine appointments.

“My concern is the people who were already not planning to get the vaccine will latch on to this as further justification just for why they shouldn’t get it,” said Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner, emergency physician and Washington Post contributing columnists.

Federal officials recommended the nationwide pause in administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while they review a rare type of blood clot known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in conjunction with thrombocytopenia, or low blood platelets, developed in six women who had received that vaccine. One such woman from Virginia died.

Public health officials say the pause is proof that the adverse effect reporting system is working properly and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration are taking even extremely rare side effects seriously.

The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia stopped administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine within hours of the federal recommendation, as clinics that were prepared to give that vaccine quickly switched to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna versions. The one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was particularly useful for people experiencing homelessness and for transient populations who may have trouble returning for a second dose.

Mark Whitlock, senior pastor at Reid Temple AME, which partnered with Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center to host vaccine clinics for Prince George’s County, Md., residents, said one congregant contacted him Tuesday with concerns about the Johnson & Johnson pause.

“She and I had prayed, and I assured her that we had Pfizer and Moderna,” he said. “I am very concerned about the safety of the membership of Reid Temple. I am celebrating the fact that they did take it off the market.”

Vaccine supply and access – not hesitancy – remains his biggest concern in Prince George’s, one of the region’s communities hit hardest by the coronavirus, which can cause the illness covid-19.

The long-term impact of the pause will depend on what investigators discover and how they communicate findings to the public, experts said.

“If we can’t confidently have the American public believe and trust in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, that could undermine the entire effort,” Danny Avula, Virginia’s vaccine coordinator, told reporters Tuesday.

But he said the incidence of six cases among the millions of doses administrated is “exceedingly rare for a serious side effect.”

About 31 million people, or 10% of the American, population has contracted the novel coronavirus; of that number, one out of 585 people died of the disease, he said.

“In relative terms, these are really low rates of incidence,” he said of the six cases. “All of this is like a big risk-benefit calculation,” he said.

– – –

The Washington Post’s Erin Cox contributed to this report.

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Target, Netflix, Bank of America join companies, executives in opposing limits to voting rights

InternationalApr 15. 2021Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

By Todd C. Frankel, Josh Dawsey, Jena McGregor
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Top Republican officials continue to push back against a surge of major companies and corporate leaders who oppose new voting laws being pursued by Republicans in dozens of states, with fresh signs that some in the GOP are waiting to see how far companies are willing to go on this issue.

Even as executives representing a wide swath of Corporate America discussed via Zoom last weekend potentially withholding political donations and business investments over the issue, speakers at the Republican National Committee retreat in Palm Beach were pledging to continue the fight. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was applauded at the RNC meeting for attacking Major League Baseball, among others, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post.

“Major businesses who are getting in bed with the left, the corporate media and big tech … these corporate executives have no backbone, they don’t want to be criticized by the corporate partisan media – they cave, they virtue signal in one direction,” DeSantis said.

“You have these woke corporations who are colluding with all those folks,” he continued. “We have to stand up for ourselves, we’ve got to fight back.”

On Wednesday, hundreds of major companies and corporate leaders released a joint statement that said voting is “the lifeblood of our democracy” and “we must ensure the right to vote for all of us” – a seeming rebuke of the hostile tone coming from Republicans who insist the laws are needed for election security and companies should stay out of politics.

The developments could possibly reshape political giving and potentially fracture a long-held alliance between the GOP and corporate business giants, who are increasingly under pressure to take political stands – and can feel the backlash for doing it. “I think what is happening is new,” said Steven Law, who runs the Senate Leadership PAC, the major fundraising arm for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Political groups say corporate PAC giving is down this year across the board.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the mounting rhetorical attacks will lead to an actual rupture between corporations and the GOP.

Wednesday’s statement by corporate leaders – which cast the issue as nonpartisan – included support from recognizable corporate names such as Target, Netflix, Bank of America, Facebook, Cisco, Twitter, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, Mastercard, American Airlines, United Airlines and Vanguard, as well as prominent people such as investor Warren Buffett, law firms and nonprofit organizations.

The statement was also notable for the names that were missing, including Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola – two companies that earlier this month were among the first to oppose new voting rules in their home state of Georgia.

The statement was discussed during the Zoom meeting of corporate leaders last weekend and published Wednesday as an ad in The Washington Post, the New York Times and other major newspapers.

The current crop of voting measures being debated in statehouses nationwide is fueled by lingering animosity over the last presidential election, when baseless accusations of voter fraud resulted in Republican officials pushing for restrictive new laws.

“The legislation is so egregious and so targeted as to keep certain types of people from voting – I think it’s wonderful that Corporate America is taking a stand,” said one of the signers, Debra Lee, the former chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, who sits on four corporate boards.

But it remains unclear how far companies are willing to go to address concerns about voting rights.

Some GOP operatives believe the tensions will die down once the business community realizes it needs the GOP as it faces a Democratic White House proposing major new spending and potentially higher corporate tax rates.

“I am curious to see how corporations are going to feel once they start feeling the wrath of this administration, which is going to raise their taxes,” said Lisa Spies, a prominent GOP fundraiser.

Spies said she suspected much of the controversy churned was for “public display” and “a lot of these people are still donating and very active.”

Law said he didn’t think Major League Baseball thought through its decision this month to move the All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado over a voting rights bill.

“There can be an astonishing cost as to what they might always think is virtue signaling,” Law said.

“This is happening at the same time the new Biden administration is planning very aggressive moves that will be largely hostile to the business interests of these companies,” Law said.

He also pointed out the absence of Coca-Cola and Delta from Wednesday’s statement. “That could suggest that these companies learned the hard way, that when you go out relying on fake talking points supplied by (leading Georgia Democrats) Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnoc​k, you do so at your own risk,” Law said.

A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman declined to comment further about why it did not sign Wednesday’s statement, pointing to a statement made by the carrier’s CEO March 31. Coca-Cola said it did not receive the statement or a request to sign it and that its “focus has been on meeting and collaborating with local groups, and we have spoken up in support of the foundational right to vote.”

Several company officials said their decision to sign Wednesday’s statement was not a partisan one.

“We believe that is a false talking point that is being mounted by the individuals who are trying to restrict voting access to large segments of Americans,” said Neil Blumenthal, co-CEO of Warby Parker.

The statement came after Kenneth Chenault, the former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, pushed companies to take a stand on what they viewed as discriminatory laws on voting.

Chenault and Frazier coordinated a letter signed last month by 72 Black business executives that made a similar point – a letter that first drew attention to the voting bills in executive suites across the country.

Dozens of law firms also signed the statement, representing a growing effort to fight restrictive voting laws in court. Among the firms listed were Squire, Patton, Boggs; Cravath, Swaine and Moore; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison.

There was also a smattering of celebrities – some with their own companies – included on the statement, such as Naomi Campbell, Tracee Ellis Ross, Katy Perry and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The fight has left some business leaders torn.

Kathryn Wylde, who leads the Partnership for New York City, which calls much of the elite business community its members, said Republicans tend to see the voting rights issue as a partisan effort to shore up the chances of a continued Democratic majority.

“The Black executives don’t see it as a partisan issue. They see it as a civil rights issue,” Wylde said. “But a lot of the businesses can’t afford to alienate the Republicans who have defined this as a partisan issue. The reason people didn’t sign is that.”

But it is not a fight either side seemed ready to back away from.

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and former chairman of Linkedin, said he expects the business community to keep fighting.

“My hope would be a willingness to go all the way on this issue,” he said.