Biden urges Congress to pass election reform in wake of Georgia voting restrictions

Cardinal · Mar 26, 2021

I could be wrong, but I think that aside from Sinema and Manchin, Biden himself was the last moderate holdout against abolishing the filibuster. With the pressure now coming from the President, who seems to know how to talk to moderate Democrats if the covid rescue bill is anything to go by, will we finally see the first cracks form in Manchin's position?

The new Georgia voter suppression law...along with many of its horrendous optics such as police dragging away a black lawmaker for knocking on the governor's door during the bill's signing...was an important catalyst because it illustrated starkly the irrelevance of one of the leading arguments against eliminating the filibuster: that destroying the filibuster would lead to revenge by Republicans once they retook power. And it's irrelevant because a hypothetical future threat isn't very compelling when there is a clear and present threat now.

It's like my position on owning a gun. I don't like the idea of owning one because statistically speaking, people are more likely to come to harm as a result of their own gun. However, if a gang of Mad Max-style marauders was on its way to my home to murder my family, I could change my mind on gun ownership real quickly, because the imminent threat renders the hypothetical threat moot. (This is an analogy -- I am not inviting a gun control debate and I won't be baited into one).

President Joe Biden slammed Georgia's new voting restrictions, calling them 21st-century “Jim Crow” and urging Congress to pass election reform bills.

“This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said in a statement Friday afternoon. “This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.”

In the statement, Biden called on Congress to pass H.R. 1, or the “For the People Act,” which would reform ballot access and campaign finance. It would require states to offer same-day voting registration as well as two weeks of early voting, among other things. The House passed the bill earlier this month but it faces an uphill battle in the Senate amid heavy Republican criticism of the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the bill is about “rigging the system.”

Biden also urged Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would bring back Voting Rights Act protections that the Supreme Court took down.