President Joe Biden on Tuesday backed changing Senate filibuster rules to pass voting-rights protections, saying it’s necessary “to protect our democracy.”
“I support changing the Senate rules, whichever way they need to be changed, to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights,” Biden said in a speech on the grounds of Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, in Atlanta.
The filibuster allows the minority party to kill legislation that doesn’t receive 60 votes.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has set Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a deadline for either passing voting legislation or considering revising filibuster rules. The Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would, among other things, compel states to offer vote by mail and empower the federal government to review states’ voting laws to prevent discrimination.
“The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation,” Biden said. “Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know where I stand.”
As the Associated Press reported, voting-rights advocates in Georgia and nationwide are increasingly anxious about what may happen in 2022 and beyond, following enactment of Republican-pushed laws that make it harder to vote coming off former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and his subsequent push to overturn the results, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.
Democrats have a number of options when considering changes, including a so-called “carveout” from the filibuster for voting rights, and watering down the filibuster against what’s known as the “motion to proceed” to bring legislation to the floor.
In December, the Senate made an exception to the filibuster to raise the U.S. debt limit.
Biden’s party, meanwhile, is not in lockstep about changing filibuster rules. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both expressed their opposition, and others including Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona are reportedly undecided on the issue.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
