(Washington) The United States Senate began debating Joe Biden’s major electoral reform on Tuesday, with which the president promises to protect access to the ballot box for African Americans, but which is so far doomed to failure, lack of necessary support.
Posted yesterday at 5:42 p.m.
A year after the Democrat took office and ten months before the midterm elections, the organization of elections is more than ever a hot topic in America.
With his electoral reform, Joe Biden wants to set a framework for the organization of federal elections. At the same time, he seeks to cancel a series of restrictions adopted in several conservative states since the 2020 presidential election. Among them, the ban in Georgia on distributing drinks or snacks in the queue to vote, or to promote postal voting in Texas.
Republicans assure that these restrictions strengthen the security of the country’s elections, a strong argument with their base, many of whom still believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump.
On the contrary, NGOs denounce measures that deliberately target and discriminate against African-Americans, who overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden in the last election.
The president’s camp wants to pass this major electoral reform at all costs before the midterm elections, during which the Democrats risk losing their very slim majorities in Congress.
Hard situation ”
But the Republican opposition is upwind against this law, ensuring that it entrusts the Democrats with the right to take control of the polls across the country.
“We are talking about a party that wants the power to unilaterally rewrite the rules of American elections,” denounced the powerful conservative tenor Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.
There is therefore no chance of rallying Republican parliamentarians to reach the “supermajority” of 60 votes required in the Senate to close the debates and submit the text to the vote.
The leader of the Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer therefore unveiled on Tuesday evening a procedure for passing by force a simple majority – with the 51 votes his party controls against 50 for the opposition.
But two senators from the moderate wing of the Democrats refuse this maneuver, condemning the reform itself.
“Senate Democrats have no illusions about the difficulty of the situation,” Chuck Schumer conceded on Tuesday.
So what is the point of debating this law?
Events
“The president believes that the American people deserve to see what their leaders’ position is on the protection of their fundamental rights,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “That’s reason enough to move forward in this debate,” she said.
A sign of the importance he attaches to this issue, the American president has chosen to get personally involved in the battle, going twice to the Senate last week. But he also admitted to not being “sure” that this reform will succeed.
In an attempt to turn the tide, civil rights organizations have multiplied events on the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King. A new demonstration was organized on Tuesday on the steps of the Capitol.
And in a letter, the president of the civil rights association NAACP made American senators face up to their responsibilities.
“We cannot imagine a more decisive period for American democracy than the chapter you are writing,” wrote Derrick Johnson. “The bedrock of freedom in America rests on our sacred right to vote,” he stressed.
“Without him, everything else crumbles. »