Sink the filibuster to pass voting rights, Joe Biden tells senators

The US President has taken a major political gamble for reforms he says are crucial to saving US democracy.

Joe Biden speaks in Atlanta, Georgia, the cradle of the civil rights movement, on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

President Joe Biden took a major political gamble on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) in calling for a break in the Senate’s super­majority rule so that Democrats can override Republican opposition to voting rights reforms that he called crucial to saving US democracy.

Speaking in Atlanta, Georgia, the cradle of the civil rights movement, Mr Biden – who called last year’s Capitol riot by Donald Trump supporters an “attempted coup” – declared “this is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.”

He challenged Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate to stand up for two bills that would expand access to polls and prevent practices that Mr Biden said are being used to suppress black and other Democratic Party-leaning voters.

“Each one of the members of the Senate will be judged by history for where they stood before the vote and after the vote. There’s no escape,” he said.

The 50 Democrats in the 100-seat Senate support the two bills. However, under current the ­supermajority requirement, 60 votes are needed to get them passed.

Mr Biden said that if Republicans don’t co-operate then the supermajority requirement, called the filibuster, should be tossed to get the voting rights acts through. Facing Republican obstruction, “we have no option but to change the Senate rules including getting rid of the filibuster for this”.

It’s a high-risk, high-gain issue for Mr Biden, who is infuriating Republicans, while also trying to balance the more conservative wing of his party with the increasingly frustrated black community.

Coming off a powerful speech last week marking the January 6 anniversary of the pro-Trump riot, Mr Biden described the push to enshrine greater voter protections as “a turning point”.

Democrats accuse Republican state legislatures of enacting a spate of laws deliberately restricting the voting rights of minorities and curtailing early voting and mail-in voting in an effort to suppress Democrat support.

Mr Biden said Republicans were passing local laws “designed to suppress your vote, to subvert our elections”. Then throwing down the gauntlet to the Senate, the President said: “History has never been kind to those who sided with voter suppression over voter rights. I ask every elected ­official in America: how do you want to be remembered?”

Republicans describe the Democrats’ Senate push for voting rights as an attempt to manipulate the election landscape by switching power to federal authorities. They are unanimous in opposing the two bills, which Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday.

Mr Biden’s bid for a suspension of the filibuster rule is also controversial. Republicans warn that a supposedly one-off ­manoeuvre could open the floodgates to lifting the filibuster on all sorts of issues, thereby ending any semblance of bipartisanship in the chamber.

Lead Republican senator Mitch McConnell called the idea of suspending the filibuster for voting rights reforms “disturbing” and an attempt to “break our institutions to get a political outcome they want”. Perhaps worse for Mr Biden, the manoeuvre needs unanimous Democratic support to happen – and that’s far from assured, with at least two of the more conservative Democratic senators clearly sceptical.

If circumventing the filibuster fails, Mr Biden will not only see the voting rights bills defeated but emerge from the fight looking politically weakened.

The President travelled to Georgia at a time when his ­approval ratings are stuck in the low 40s and Republicans are predicted to take over congress in November mid-term elections.

He not only faces ferocious pushback from Republicans on his voter rights initiative, but complaints from black activists – a crucial part of his coalition – that he has done too little, too late.

Underlining Mr Biden’s shaky political standing, prominent black politician and Georgia voting rights activist Stacey Abrams missed his Atlanta event due to what Mr Biden called a “scheduling” glitch, while a big civil rights group said it was boycotting due to a lack of tangible progress.

Still, the speech was the boldest step yet into the issue by Mr Biden, who attended a wreath laying at the crypt of civil right leader Martin Luther King Jr and visited the Ebenezer Baptist Church ahead of his speech.

“Keep the faith,” Mr Biden said as he entered the church.

AFP