Joe Biden said on Tuesday, January 11, that he would support a high-risk change in Senate rules if necessary “To prevent a minority of senators from blocking” a vast reform on the right to vote of minorities.
“I have had quiet conversations with members of Congress for two months. I’m tired of being silent ” faced with the blockade by the Republican opposition of two crucial bills, the American president got carried away from Georgia, a state he described as “Cradle” of the struggle for civil rights.
In a virulent speech full of references to this fight led in particular by Martin Luther King in the 1960s, Joe Biden declared: “Today, I say clearly that in order to protect democracy, I support any change in the rules of the Senate, whatever it may be, to prevent a minority of senators from blocking progress on access to the right to vote. “
Speaking of a “Turning” for the United States, he assured that “Each member of the Senate would be judged by history”, regardless of the party to which he belongs. “History has never been kind to those who sided with restricting access to the vote. Nor for those who sided with the subversion of the elections ”, warned Joe Biden, who was speaking in Atlanta to students at universities historically linked to the African-American community.
Democrats want to pass two pieces of legislation
Vice President Kamala Harris had previously warned against any “Complacency” Where “Complicity” faced with the electoral reforms decided or planned in several conservative states in the southern United States.
These reforms are accused by civil rights defense associations of complicating access to the ballot boxes for minorities, considered to be more favorable to Democrats, while strengthening the grip of local authorities over voting operations.
To counter them, the Democrats want to adopt two pieces of legislation harmonizing the conditions for exercising the right to vote in the United States. But they come up against a Senate rule that requires sixty votes out of a hundred, where the presidential majority has only fifty even if it can sometimes tip the scales in its favor thanks to the decisive vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
As it seems impossible to recruit a single elected Republican – the Conservative Party, largely won over to Donald Trump and his baseless arguments about massive fraud in the last presidential election of 2020, rejects the reform en bloc – the Democrats must circumvent this rule known as the “filibuster”.