Biden accuses GOP of 'unrelenting assault' on voting. Can he deliver on voting rights legislation?
WASHINGTON — Already facing pressure to deliver on voting rights, President Joe Biden is now hearing growing calls for action by year-end from civil rights activists and others, even as no clear path for passage in the Senate exists.
The sharpened push comes after Biden said Wednesday “there’s nothing domestically more important," with Senate Democrats renewing their efforts for election reform.
But without Republican support, Democrats would have to change Senate rules to allow passage by a simple majority, which some Democrats have resisted. That's despite the fact that Republican-led states are enacting election changes that Democrats fear will put them at a disadvantage in next year's elections.
Speaking at South Carolina State University on Friday, Biden decried a “new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion” that he said is unprecedented since Reconstruction.
"I've never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote," he said.
Biden promised to "keep up the fight until we get it done."
Activists have dug in on their long-standing demand that Biden embrace voting-rights legislation with the same enthusiasm he recently exhibited before the Senate passed his $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Above all, that would mean getting behind overhauling the filibuster so Democrats can pass voting rights legislation without Republicans in the evenly divided Senate.
Derrick Johnson, CEO and president of the NAACP, said he intends to meet with the White House in the coming days.
"Words are important. Words matter," Johnson told Paste BN. "But we are looking for the outcome of voting rights protections."
More: Biden puts voting rights at top of agenda, shifting focus as hopes dim for Build Back Better
Senate Democrats have shifted attention to voting rights as they signaled they would not finish work on the president’s signature domestic policy bill until next year. On Thursday, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met virtually with seven Democratic senators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss the path forward on voting rights.
Biden, in a statement Thursday, acknowledged his Build Back Better legislation requires more work.
"At the same time, we must also press forward on voting rights legislation, and make progress on this as quickly as possible," he said.
Johnson said legislation needs to pass by the end of the year before several Republican-led state legislatures meet in early 2022 to adopt new lines for congressional districts. Two Democratic-backed bills seek to halt partisan gerrymandering. It's an ambitious timeline, particularly as moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona remain opposed to changing the filibuster rules.
"We have concerns that if it's not done by the end of the year, you would have irreparable harm on many communities across the country," Johnson said.
Voting rights groups, including People for the American Way and the League of Women Voters, announced Thursday they would increase efforts to urge Biden to be more active.
New laws add urgency
Court decisions in recent years have ended federal oversight of elections, prompting what Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler called an “onslaught of discriminatory voting laws and practices" that targets Black and other minority voters. Also, many GOP-led states tightened voting rules after the 2020 election, which former President Donald Trump falsely claims was rife with fraud.
In 2013, the Supreme Court overturned a requirement that nine states – mostly in the South – need federal approval to change their voting rules because of a history of discriminating against minority voters.
The court ruled that the “preclearance” program was outdated because it relied on decades-old data and eradicated practices.
In July, the court upheld two restrictive voting laws in Arizona. The decision in the case, called Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, said states may have good reason to shorten voting hours that have nothing to do with discrimination, for example.
In Texas, the Biden administration recently filed suit against the state’s redistricting plan, which liberal groups criticized as an attempt to dilute the voting power of nonwhite Texans.
“I think that we're watching all kinds of gerrymandering happen right now,” Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said Thursday. “People are losing their voices every single day. And I'd like to see us at least have a path forward to voting rights before we leave for Christmas.”
Advocates say federal standards are needed for voting practices like drop boxes and mail-in ballots that were widely used during the pandemic but that Trump and other Republicans say create opportunities for fraud.
At least 19 states this year enacted laws making it harder for Americans to vote, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
Texas, for example, tightened mail-in ballot rules and limited the availability of ballot drop boxes and drive-thru voting.
Montana ended Election Day registration. Florida limited after-hours drop boxes. Georgia has made it a crime to provide food and water to people waiting in line.
“No one can look at these restrictions with a straight face and say they have a legitimate purpose,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “They have only one goal. It is a despicable goal. It’s a nasty goal, making it harder for younger, poorer, non-white and typically Democratic voters to access the ballot.”
What’s in the elections legislation?
The House passed in August legislation to revive federal oversight of state voting-rights laws weakened by recent Supreme Court decisions.
Named for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon, the bill would restore Justice Department review of changes in election laws in states with a history of discrimination.
More: Republicans block John Lewis Voting Rights Act in Senate vote
It would also give the Justice Department more power, in all states, to block or overturn redistricting maps and state laws. Those include voter ID requirements and restrictions on voting by mail.
And it would make it easier for civil rights groups, or other interests, to mount their own challenges on the grounds of discrimination.
Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to federalize election rules to their advantage.
“It isn’t about ‘voting rights,’” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday, “it’s a naked power grab.”
More: Voting rights and election reform: Senate Republicans block latest legislation
Separate election law legislation, a slimmed-down version of another House-passed bill, is also stalled in the Senate. It was a compromise within the Senate Democratic caucus after the House version got lackluster support from party moderates and no support from Republicans.
The Freedom to Vote Act would set minimum voting standards, including for early voting options, voting by mail and allowing for same-day registration on Election Day, which would be a federal holiday.
It would also specify how the boundaries of congressional districts can be drawn in an effort to avoid giving one party too much of an advantage.
Pressure from activists
The renewed focus on voting rights legislation comes after civil rights activists have gotten louder in calling for Biden to more forcefully use the bully pulpit on the issue – arguing the fate of Democratic control of Congress, and even democracy itself, is at stake.
“Salvaging our democracy. That’s where we are right now," said Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a co-founder of Give Us the Ballot, a micro-donation campaign funding the fight for voting rights.
Democrats and voting-rights advocates have watched in dismay as Trump continues to push "the big lie," advancing baseless conspiracy theories to falsely argue the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The King family has asked the public not to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday Jan. 17 unless a voting-rights bill has passed. King and organizers have organized symbolic marches across bridges, beginning in Phoenix, to rally support for congressional action.
"As we observe the King holiday this year, it should not be just about celebration. It should be about legislation," Martin Luther King III said. "We saw that the president, the White House, Congress worked together to get infrastructure done, and that's great. But that same amount of effort must be put into getting voting rights."
Civil rights activist Arndrea Waters King, co-founder with King, her husband, said had Biden used his “full weight” of the White House “we would have had legislation passed.”
More: Martin Luther King Jr.'s family to launch campaign in Phoenix urging Congress to pass voting rights
Few Republicans in Washington have distanced themselves from Trump's statements, and Republican state lawmakers in Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and other battleground states have openly embraced Trump's falsehoods and supported "audits" to question election results.
Some progressives worry failure to advance legislation to overturn Republican measures at the state level – actions that limited mail-in voting, decreased early voting and eliminated Election Day voter registration in certain states – could help Republicans reclaim power in the 2022 midterm elections and Trump win back the White House in 2024.
"Midterms will be coming up, which means that it's going to make it harder for people to vote, and it shouldn't be," King said. "It should be the easiest thing on the planet that we can do."
Manchin and Sinema remain obstacles
But even if Biden were to get behind a change in filibuster rules, it might not be enough to change the positions of two moderate Senate Democrats – Manchin and Sinema – who remain roadblocks.
Although both have expressed support for voting legislation, the two senators have said they oppose getting rid of the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. And neither has given any indication they will budge.
“The truth is, is Joe's not there yet, but we're working on him. We'll continue to work on him," said Montana Sen. Jon Tester.
The filibuster is a legislative tool that allows the Senate to continue debating on an issue and not allow it to go to a vote. There needs to be 60 senators — so in this Congress, 10 Republicans joining all 50 Democratic-voting senators — to bypass the filibuster.
While Sinema "strongly supports" both pieces of voting rights legislation, her spokesman John LaBombard said Wednesday, the senator also "continues to support the Senate's 60-vote threshold to protect the country from repeated radical reversals in federal policy." Sinema has argued that weakening or eliminating the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation would enable the same bill to be rescinded and replaced with harsh national voting restrictions if Republicans regain power.
"If there are proposals to make the Senate work better for everyday Americans without risking repeated radical reversals in federal policy, Senator Sinema is eager to hear such ideas and – as always – is willing to engage in good-faith discussions with her colleagues," LaBombard said.
During Thursday's meeting, the senators "provided an update on their progress" to Biden and Harris, according to White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and the president and vice president "reaffirmed the importance of acting to ensure that every American can vote and have that vote be counted."
Warnock called it a "very encouraging conversation."
King offered hope that Sinema and Manchin will change their position on the filibuster. He pointed to his father's persistence in 1964 that a reluctant President Lyndon B. Johnson still seek voting rights legislation even after passage of the Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed a year later.
"I think that when elected officials understand where the people are, elected officials are compelled to move," Martin Luther King III said.
Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison and Maureen Groppe @mgroppe