Biden took his gloves off in supporting voting rights and waived some brass knuckles. If nothing had worked before, extreme shaming was tried. Good for him. His speech in Georgia this week shocked, shocked, shocked some people, among them Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader. How dare Biden compare those opposing carving out the votes to the filibuster to pass the voting rights bills to Bull Conner, Jefferson Davis, and George Wallace said McConnell as he roared back in righteous indignation. Well, then. stop acting like it, McConnell. You are leading your GOP caucus in opposition. You are the roadblocks and you and your GOP senators will go down in history with the rest of the white racists who tried to stop the minorities who are knocking on the door for their rights to vote in fair and free elections. The MAGA-controlled GOP senators will forever look like democracy is of, for, and by the GOP, but not for anyone else who could vote for their opponents. For the two holdout Democratic senators who piously claim they are for voting rights but are blocking a plan to exempt voting rights from the filibuster rules, they deserved the knuckles speech... A simple majority of senators is needed to approve any tinkering with the senate filibuster rules which would carve out voting rights as exempted from a 60 vote supermajority. Their opposition to filibuster changes will be painted by that same brush regardless of their reasoning. Their votes and actions count; their words will be forgotten. Assuming all 50 Democratic senators plus the VP would vote for the two voting rights bills as they say they will, failure to exempt the issue from the filibuster rule will defeat them., If the bills come up for a vote exempted from the 60 vote filibuster. they will pass. If the filibuster is not reformed, the MAGA crowd will cheer and the rest of us will be SOL. In short, blocking the vote on any changing of the filibuster rules in the Senate is as good as a no vote against the voting rights bills. That goes for both the GOP senators and the two Democratic holdouts. Update: later in January 13 Manchin and Sineima were unbudged. https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-biden-speak-democrats-voting-164404152.html
Very disappointing were the Georgia civil rights leaders who thought they were doing Biden a favor by boycotting his speech as a way to punish him for not doing more. They did not want words; they wanted action, they said. With friends like these, Biden needs no more enemies. What did they think he could do short of arm twisting and the bully pulpit.? He has been doing plenty of the former and he just bellowed from the pulpit. They are fools if they use their criticism to suppress their own votes.
How did we get in this fix? The blame falls on both the GOP caucus in the Senate and the Supreme Court. The Senate is a 50-50 one, but VP Harris is the tiebreaker. The Democrats needed just two more senators for any margin for error and they were lucky to get 50 in 2020. Manchin has claimed he is pledged to a bi-partisan vote, but that means getting ten Republicans to buck pressure to join the Democrats if the filibuster rule is not altered. He couldn't find them even for the moderate version of the voting rights bill he himself wrote. If Sinema and he stop filibuster changes, then the bills will fail for lack of the 60 votes. Biden's remarks in Georgia were likely aimed at those two holdouts on the filibuster exemption. GOP senators were a lost cause, though the fat lady has not sung yet. Strange things can still happen.
Recent decisions by the Supreme Court knocked the props out of the enforcement of the original civil rights voting protections. There was also a GOP strategy to get their sympathizers on the bench while keeping the others off via GOP Senate leaders' maneuvers in the past several years. They denied the approval of Obama's nominations by never calling a vote on it or a hearing and when they had the chance, they exempted Supreme Court approval from that same filibuster rule requiring 60 votes so they could get their three nominees approved with 51 votes. Clever of them, wasn't it? It is the ultimate hypocrisy now for GOP senate leaders fighting to keep the filibuster to stop voting rights protections. The resulting conservative majority on the Supreme Court made two critical decisions and referred the matter to Congress to pass laws to rectify the matter. 1) the critical section of the original voting rights act was gutted, which provided if states started to pass discriminatory legislation, they would not have to get court approval first and 2) political gerrymandering was not considered against the Constitution per the same Court. It was Katy bar the door, giving the GOP-dominated legislators the freedom to pass voter suppression and vote total subversion laws. These state legislators then passed laws that permit, partisan panels that permitted political gerrymandering to reduce legislative districts that would have more Democratic seats in state and federal elections. Court referred the issue of gerrymandering back to Congress. This issue and others are the partisan MAGA and GOP goal is making it harder for old, poor, students, and racial minorities to vote, not easier, to remove the administration and counting of votes from any independence and put it in their cronies' partisan hands, and to give state legislatures the go-ahead to ignore the popular vote in the states in presidential and other elections. Those Court decisions opened the door for subversion of the will of the majority of the people, which could only be fixed by Congress.. Majority rule is a fundamental definition of a democracy. Protection of the rights of all is the hallmark of our US democracy through the various amendments.
Remarks by President Biden on Protecting the Right to Vote | The White House
From the text: "So, I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered? At consequential moments in history, they present a choice: Do you want to be the si- — on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?"
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