RALEIGH, N.C. — Ask anyone around town, from city leaders to citizens, and the case for why Apple will choose the Research Triangle for its newest and much sought-after corporate campus is airtight. Burgeoning tech scene? Check. Workforce? Among the most educated in America. Transit? Working on it. And did you hear about Tim Cook and other top Apple executives’ ties to the area?
If Apple does open up shop in the area, reports in local media suggest it could invest hundreds of millions and create as many as 10,000 jobs. But after a spring of breathless speculation, talk of Apple choosing Raleigh has died down, and politics could be a big reason why.
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At the heart of the issue may be the state legislature, whose conservative priorities align better with the state’s more-rural areas than the capital city where its lawmakers do their business.
“It’s not going to be the one thing that makes the difference to Apple. It’s going to be the pattern of regressive and culturally conservative legislation that would turn them away,” says Thomas Mills, a Democratic political consultant and former candidate in the state.
This year, lawmakers extended the so-called short legislative session deep into the summer, pulling the kinds of polarizing political maneuvers that draw attention.
A voter ID constitutional amendment in particular has attracted the ire of progressive critics. The amendment, one of six on the ballot this fall, would require voters to present photo identification when voting in person. Crucially, the amendment would open the door to future voter ID legislation that would be immune to court rulings over its constitutionality, such as the 2017 federal court verdict that struck down North Carolina’s last voter ID law, arguing it targeted African-Americans with “almost surgical precision.”
Color of Change, a nonprofit racial justice organization that conducts pointed online activism campaigns, is pressuring Apple (and Amazon, which has put Raleigh on the shortlist for its second headquarters) to spurn North Carolina because of the proposal.
“These are companies that constantly talk about the future and innovation,” says Rashad Robinson, the group’s president. “To move to a state whose political leaders are working to bring us into a very dark and challenging past should be something they should be concerned about … There should be consequences for a state that writes discrimination and voter suppression into their laws.”
Robinson says Color of Change has reached out to current employees of Apple, directly and via targeted advertising, in hopes they raise their concerns about North Carolina to their higher-ups. The group has also made contact with Apple and Amazon executives, he says.
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“We haven’t been ignored. We know that people (within Apple and Amazon) are aware and I think one or both of these companies will make a decision not to locate there,” Robinson says. “Will they move their people to a place where if you are black or brown there will be discrimination against you?”
Indeed, in an era when corporations’ brands are tied to cultural and political debates, North Carolina can be fraught territory. It was here that a few years ago Republican leaders ignited a national firestorm over HB2, the so-called bathroom bill, which critics alleged encoded transgender discrimination into law and eventually scared off PayPal and the NCAA, among others.
“It never helps our ability to attract globally competitive industry when we have a legislature so strongly associated with controversial policy like HB2,” says Allan Freyer of the North Carolina Justice Center, a progressive policy group. “All the incentives in the world can’t make up for the damage we did with HB2.”
Adding to the intrigue, Apple CEO Tim Cook indicated in June the company would not shy away from politics when necessary.
“I don’t think business should only deal in commercial things … Business to me is nothing more than a collection of people,” Cook said at a Fortune event. “If people should have values, which I argue they should, then by extension a company should have values.”
But locating a headquarters in the Triangle is not necessarily an endorsement for everything the legislature is doing, says Adrienne Cole, president of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.
“Our business community has been engaged and vocal about what they think is okay or not okay at the legislature for a long, long time. Sometimes those are tax issues, sometimes social issues,” says Cole.
Not to mention, the area does have a lot going for it from the perspective of a large tech company like Apple, she says.
“What differentiates this area from others is the talent here is more accessible. It’s easier to retain and recruit,” says Cole. “And we have these universities that pump out a pipeline of talent.”
If Apple does choose Raleigh, the ensuing uneasy political relationship would hardly be unique, says Joseph Parilla, a fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank.
“These companies are always going to have public policy disagreements (with local governments),” says Parilla. “Look at Amazon’s relationship with Seattle, which is extremely left-leaning. It’s extremely antagonistic.”
And North Carolina’s legislators have taken pains to make the state appealing to corporations. The legislature has cut the state’s corporate tax rate in half in recent years, and passed a generous economic incentives package this year that would nearly eliminate tax liabilities for projects like Amazon’s and Apple’s for 30 years.
“The reality is the same states that are having legislatures dealing with issues of identity or social issues are also states that have very friendly corporate practices,” says Parilla.
Whether that would be enough to offset the concerns over issues like voter ID is an open question.
“These types of social issues do cut against part of a younger, multicultural workforce these companies are trying to attract,” Parilla says. “If the sense becomes the political environment of the place they’re going might limit their ability to retain and attract that talent, of course that’s a factor.”
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Voter ID Amendment Could Affect Apple’s Outlook on Raleigh originally appeared on usnews.com
