Joe Biden backs changing US Senate rules to facilitate passing voting rights reform

President Joe Biden has backed changing traditional rules of the US Senate to facilitate the passing of voting rights reforms which Democrats say are needed to deal with restrictions on voting being introduced by various states across the country.

In a speech on Tuesday in Atlanta, Georgia – which he described as the cradle of civil rights in the US – Mr Biden urged the US Congress to pass legislation to tackle voter suppression.

He said he was “tired of being quiet” about introducing voting rights legislation.

The Democratic president said not a single Republican senator now had the courage to stand up to a defeated president to protect the right to vote, a reference to continued party support for his predecessor Donald Trump.

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Mr Biden added that the threat to democracy was so grave that a way had to be found to debate and vote in the Senate on voting rights legislation. He said if this did not happen there would be no option but to change the filibuster rules.

However, despite his public comments on Tuesday, there is no guarantee that the leadership of the Democratic Party in the Senate can attract sufficient support from their own members to change the traditional "filibuster" rules.

Super-majority

At present essentially a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate is needed to overcome a filibuster by the opposition party to prevent the passage of legislation.

The House of Representatives in Washington, DC, has passed two pieces of voting rights legislation but these are currently stalled in the Senate.

The legislation comes as Republican-controlled legislatures in a number of states have introduced new requirements which Democrats argue will make it harder to vote and particularly affect minority groups in casting a ballot.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and policy institute, has maintained that between January 1st and December 7th last year, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting.

The issue is of major importance to Democrats as they seek to maintain their slender hold on both houses of Congress in the midterm elections later this year.

All Democrats in the Senate support the two Bills on voting rights passed by the House of Representatives. But in the absence of Republican support the measures have insufficient backing to overcome the filibuster rules. However, a number of Democratic senators are resisting moves to amend the filibuster to facilitate the Bills passing the Senate.

Georgia activism

Mr Biden said that activists in Georgia had changed the political complexion of the state by registering increased numbers of people and getting them to vote.

He said Republicans believed having too many people voting was a problem and were now putting in place obstacles to voting. He said Republicans in Georgia were trying to make it harder to vote by mail and had made it illegal to give water to people waiting in long queues to cast their ballot.

Some voting rights groups in Georgia did not take part in the events on Tuesday involving the president and vice-president Kamala Harris in Atlanta, on the basis that Mr Biden needed to provide concrete action to get voting reforms through the Senate.

Stacey Abrams, the voting rights activist and Georgia gubernatorial candidate, did not attend the speech by Mr Biden in Atlanta or his other appearances with the vice-president as she had a scheduling conflict.

Before leaving Washington for Georgia Mr Biden said he had “a great relationship” with Ms Abrams. “We got our scheduling mixed up. I’m going to be – I talked with her at length this morning. We’re all on the same page and everything is fine.”

Mr Biden said the debate on the filibuster and voting rights in the coming days would represent “a defining moment”.

“People are going to be judged – where were they before and where were they after the vote. History is going to judge it; it’s that consequential. And so, the risk is: making sure people understand just how important this is .”