The CBC's Four Asks

Chairwoman Clarke's call is not a press statement asking corporations to "do better." It is a specific set of measurable actions, directed at the more than 200 corporations the Caucus says publicly committed — after George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police officers in 2020 — to defend democracy, equal access to the ballot box, and Black political representation. The CBC is asking each of those corporations to do the following:

1. Issue a public statement reaffirming the company's commitment to voting rights and equal representation.
2. Publish a political-spending report disclosing donations and contributions tied to state legislators and policymakers active in voting-rights legislation.
3. Directly engage with the Congressional Black Caucus on the company's current voting-rights posture.
4. Participate in a national convening the CBC will host on the future of Black political representation.

The CBC's framing is direct: silence in the wake of the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling — five years after those public voting-rights pledges were made — does not register as neutrality. It registers as a position.

What Has Happened to the Maps

• Apr 29 Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais weakens challenges to racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act. The decision restricts the legal tools voters have used to challenge maps that dilute Black voting power. BDI-SIG-2026-1635
• May 1 Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declines to redraw the state's electoral maps for 2026, citing the Callais ruling and the May 19 primary. Black voters in Georgia will go to the polls in 2026 under the existing lines. BDI-SIG-2026-1380
• May 11 The Supreme Court reinstates Alabama's congressional map, overriding a lower-court order that had blocked it under the Voting Rights Act for diluting the Black vote. BDI-SIG-2026-8848
• May 13 Georgia Governor Kemp signs a proclamation convening a special session of the General Assembly for June 17 to redraw the state's electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle. Kemp's words: "It's clear that Callais requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle." BDI-SIG-2026-7324
• May 19 The NAACP names eight states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia — and calls on Black athletes, families, and fans to withhold support from public schools in those states. NAACP President Derrick Johnson: "It is a sprint to erase Black political power." BDI-SIG-2026-5084
• May 26 The South Carolina Senate blocks a map that would have eliminated the state's only majority-Black district. The lone state-level reversal in the data. BDI-SIG-2026-4560
• May 26 The Congressional Black Caucus calls on Corporate America to defend Black voting power and reaffirm prior pledges. BDI-SIG-2026-2275

Where the Capital Has Landed in 2026

While the maps were being redrawn, Index // MRKT tracked the following corporate investment announcements landing in the eight states.

Texas is also drawing corporate legal homes, not just capital. ExxonMobil's shareholder-approved move follows Tesla and SpaceX in re-domiciling to the state — a concentration of corporate legal accountability inside one of the eight named states, under a Business Court designed to be more favorable to companies than to the shareholders and communities that might sue them.

Florida and South Carolina are inside the eight named states but did not register a major new corporate investment announcement in the Index // MRKT signal window. Florida remains a permanent presence state for several of the largest U.S. consumer-facing companies, listed below.

The Brands BDI Tracks Across This Footprint

The CBC's call lands on a defined corporate footprint. Twelve brands BDI tracks are either headquartered in one of the eight named states or are making major recent investments inside them. Among those twelve, three are also among the largest 2026 capital deployments into the eight states — Amazon (Mississippi, $25B), Starbucks (Tennessee, $100M), and Hasbro (Georgia distribution). The matrix below also flags which of these brands publicly signed the Business for Voting Rights letter to Congress on July 14, 2021 — the most prominent corporate voting-rights pledge of the post-2020 era.

Data from Index // MRKT's analysis of each company's most recent publicly available equity disclosure. "—" indicates the company has not published the metric. The VR Pledger '21 badge marks signatories of the July 14, 2021 Business for Voting Rights letter to Congress (businessforvotingrights.com). Three Atlanta brands — Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Chick-fil-A — are headquartered in Georgia, where the governor has called a June 17 special session to redraw electoral maps before 2028. Meta (as Facebook) also signed the 2021 BVR letter; Meta is not in this matrix but is the largest 2026 corporate investment in Louisiana ($10B Project Hyperion).

Other BVR Signers in the 8-State Footprint

Beyond the brands in BDI's full equity matrix above, the Business for Voting Rights signatory list includes additional corporations with consequential presence in the eight named states. They are separated here because BDI does not currently track the full equity record for the HQ additions — and because the operational-footprint cross-reference is broader research the deeper investigation can complete on commission.

BVR Signers Headquartered in the 8 States

• Tesla · HQ Austin, Texas. Relocated from Palo Alto, California in late 2021 — the move was announced on October 7, 2021, three months after Tesla signed the July 14, 2021 Business for Voting Rights letter to Congress. BDI does not currently have a full Tesla equity scorecard.
• Greenlight Financial Technology · HQ Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta-based fintech. BDI does not currently have a full Greenlight equity scorecard.

BVR Signers With Major Operations in the 8 States

The following BVR signers are not headquartered in the eight states but do have substantial operational, retail, or distribution presence inside them, with BDI equity records already on file:

• Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP · major Texas operations and data centers; Google additionally with a substantial Atlanta presence.
• Target, Best Buy · national consumer-retail footprint covering all eight states.
• PepsiCo · Atlanta-area bottling and distribution operations, plus broader southern-state footprint.

A full state-by-state cross-reference of operational presence, political spending, and supplier networks for the broader BVR signatory list is the kind of mapping the deeper investigation can complete on commission. See below.

The Say-Do Gap: Scorecard vs. Signals

Index // MRKT carries two streams of data on every brand in the matrix above: the corporate equity scorecard — built from each company's most recent published disclosure — and the daily signal record — built from news, court filings, regulatory actions, and public statements that follow. The scorecard is what each company says about its own track record with Black stakeholders. The signal record is what the company actually does, day to day, in public. Below, the two streams compared for the brands with the most consequential 2026 activity.

Bottom Line

The Congressional Black Caucus made a public, specific demand on May 26, with four named actions. The voting maps that prompted the call have moved — or have been scheduled to move — in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, with the NAACP naming eight states in the broader pattern. The capital landed in those same states totals more than $56 billion in 2026 alone. The corporations headquartered there have a public-record posture documented in Index // MRKT. The CBC will hold a national convening. The receipts above are what was on the public record on the day the call went out. Index // MRKT will track each corporation's response as it lands.

Story we missed? Write us at [email protected].

Index // MRKT Signals Cited