The US House already passed the Voting Rights bills. It is time to get everyone in the US Senate on the record.
January 12, 2021
By Carl Hulse
Washington - Moving quickly to force a showdown (click here) over voting rights, congressional Democrats plan to pursue a procedural shortcut to bring up stalled legislation and try to win its approval over deep Republican resistance.
In a memo to Senate Democrats on Wednesday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, laid out a new strategy intended to overcome at least one procedural obstacle erected by Republicans to prevent the Senate from even considering the legislation.
Under the plan, the House would package two major pieces of voting rights legislation being pushed by Democrats — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — insert them into an unrelated bill and pass it. That measure would then go to the Senate as what is known as a “message,” meaning Republicans could not filibuster a move to bring it to the floor for debate and Democrats would not need to muster 60 votes to do so.
“Taking advantage of this existing exception to the Senate’s supermajority requirements will allow us to end the Republicans’ ability to block debate on voting rights legislation,” Mr. Schumer wrote in the memo. “The Senate will finally debate voting rights legislation, and then every senator will be faced with a choice of whether or not to pass the legislation to protect our democracy.”...
