A number of iconic sports figures with ties to West Virginia, including NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West and University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban, sent a letter to Sen. Joe Manchin encouraging his support for voting rights legislation.
“We strongly support urgently needed legislation that will protect both the rights of voters and the integrity of outcomes in all Federal elections,” the letter, also signed by former NFL player and executive Oliver Luck, College Football Hall of Famer Darryl Talley and former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, reads.
The sports figures praised the Freedom to Vote Act, which Manchin sponsored along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, saying that it “effectively addressed these goals,” and endorsed Manchin’s “in shaping legislation to secure our democracy by protecting election integrity, principled Presidential transitions and our national security during transitions.”
“We come from some of our Nation's most popular sports leagues, conferences and teams. Some of us have roots and shaped our lives in West Virginia, others followed very different paths and some of us have been rivals in sports or business,” the letter continues. “But we are all certain that democracy is best when voting is open to everyone on a level playing field; the referees are neutral; and at the end of the game the final score is respected and accepted.”
“We are united now in urging Congress to exercise its Constitutional responsibility to enact laws that set national standards for the conduct of Federal elections and for decisions that determine election outcomes,” the letter continues.
The signatories praised Manchin “for ensuring that such legislation rests on critical features of our Constitution,” noting that they “guarantee that all Americans have an equal voice in our democracy and that Federal elections are conducted with integrity so that the votes of all eligible voters determine the election outcomes.”
The sports figures blasted efforts at the state level to “restrict voting access and allow local officials or state legislatures to interfere inappropriately with Federal election outcomes.”
According to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, 19 states have passed 34 restrictive voting laws in the last year, the most since the group began tracking such legislation in 2011.
The letter’s authors slammed those restrictive laws, claiming they “seek to secure partisan advantage by eliminating reliable practices with proven safeguards and substituting practices ripe for manipulation.”
The group pledged to encourage other sports and business figures to endorse the Senate enacting “balanced and widely supported” voting rights legislation.
All of the signatories of the letter, save for Tagliabue, have ties to Manchin’s home state of West Virginia: Saban was born in the state and was quarterback of the 1968 state championship football team. West played college basketball for West Virginia University and was West Virginia Player of the Year in high school. Luck was athletics director at WVU and played football for the school, winning the Peach Bowl in 1981 alongside Talley, who is also a member of the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame.
Saban and West also have close ties to Manchin, endorsing his 2018 re-election campaign and even appearing in an ad for the West Virginia Democrat.
"Joe and I grew up together in West Virginia and he never forgets where he came from," Saban said in the ad. "I don't have a better friend or know a better person than Joe Manchin.”
“He loves our state,” West said. “He’s dedicated his whole life to West Virginia.”
Manchin and fellow moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have faced criticism from liberals and voting rights activists for their support of the 60-vote legislative filibuster threshold to pass major legislation in the Senate, which Republicans used numerous times last year to block voting rights legislation.
President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders have worked tirelessly in recent weeks to advance voting rights legislation in the face of Republican opposition. Biden last week made his most fierce call yet to get election reform legislation passed, including endorsing a change to the Senate’s filibuster rules in order to do so.