Biden pushes For overhaul of US election laws

BoomRadioNG | January 12, 2022

US President Joe Biden has called for a historic change to Senate rules as he seeks to overhaul the country’s election laws.

In an impassioned speech, he said he supported changes that would allow his voting reforms to be passed without the support of opposition Republicans.

Misgivings from two senators in his party are hampering his plans, and no Republicans have backed them.

Currently, a majority of 60% is needed to pass most legislation in the Senate.

Joe Biden
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The US president said in a speech in Georgia on Tuesday; “To protect our democracy, I support changing the Senate rules, whichever way they need to be changed, to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights,”

“I’ve been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months. I’m tired of being quiet,” he added, while banging his fist on the lectern.

Biden said the push to pass the legislation was a “battle for the soul of America“, adding that the 60-vote rule – known as the filibuster – had rendered the Senate “a shell of its former self”.