Dear MoveOn member,
This is the moment we've been waiting for: President Biden is officially backing a carve-out to the filibuster for voting rights legislation!
"If the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster," Biden said.1
This marks the first time Biden has directly expressed support for the Senate to act immediately on filibuster reform.
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is capitalizing on the momentum. He just announced that the Senate will vote on changes to the filibuster on or before January 17.
John, this news is HUGE. The Jim Crow filibuster, which requires 60 votes in order to hold a vote on legislation, allowing a minority of extremists to block progress for generations, is the only thing standing in the way of protecting our freedom to vote.
But Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema is still threatening to block filibuster reform—and if she succeeds, she would kill the prospect of passing voting rights legislation and clear the path for Republicans to attempt to steal this November's elections and then install Donald Trump as president for a second term in 2024.
That's why MoveOn is launching a full-court press to pressure Sinema and all Democratic senators to amend the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation.
With Donald Trump and the Republican Party laser-focused on undermining and rigging democratic elections in the United States, passing federal legislation to protect free and fair elections couldn't be more important.
Republican state lawmakers have passed 34 laws in 19 states to make it harder to vote, including in key battleground states like Georgia, with a near-surgical focus on disenfranchising people of color, low-income voters, and young people.2
And Donald Trump is working hard to install his lackeys to offices that oversee elections and have the power to declare winners and losers.3 As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, we are reminded that the Republican Party is willing to go any lengths—including violence—to cling to power.
But voting rights legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act has the power to counter much of Trump's strategy and protect our democracy.
The Freedom to Vote Act would do all this:
The future of our democracy hangs in the balance. And we have only 14 days to protect it.
Thanks for all you do.
–Emma, Gabi, Amy, Heather, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Biden says he supports filibuster carve-out for voting rights," CNN, December 23, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159910?t=4&akid=314063%2E40999114%2EDQ_0bh
2. "Voting Laws Roundup: December 2021," Brennan Center for Justice, December 21, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159849?t=6&akid=314063%2E40999114%2EDQ_0bh
3. "How Trump-backed secretary of state candidates would change elections in the United States," The Washington Post, December 1, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159806?t=8&akid=314063%2E40999114%2EDQ_0bh
4. "The Freedom to Vote Act," Brennan Center for Justice, November 3, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159376?t=10&akid=314063%2E40999114%2EDQ_0bh
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