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Biden to amp up the pressure on the Senate to change filibuster rules for voting rights during Atlanta speech - CNN
Jan 11, 2022 3 mins, 14 secs

During his speech in Georgia, which will take place on the grounds of Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College, Biden "will forcefully advocate for protecting the most bedrock American right: The right to vote and have your voice counted in a free, fair and secure election that is not tainted by partisan manipulation," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday.

In his speech, Psaki said, Biden will "describe this as one of the rare moments in a country's history when time stops and the essential is immediately ripped away from the trivial.

And that we have to ensure January 6 doesn't mark the end of democracy but the renaissance for our democracy, where we stand up for the right to vote and have that vote counted fairly, not undermined by partisans afraid of who you voted for or try to reverse an outcome."

Without changing the filibuster rules, it's unclear how either bill Biden wants passed will get done.

He has previously expressed his support for making an exception to the filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation.

A White House official said that changing the filibuster rules in order to get voting rights legislation passed is necessary to make sure "this basic right is defended."

"Because abuse of what was once a rarely used mechanism that is not in the Constitution has injured the body enormously, and its use to protect extreme attacks on the most basic constitutional right is abhorrent," the official said.

The Senate is expected to take up voting rights in the coming days.

Day -- for the Senate to vote on a rules change if Republicans continue to block voting rights legislation.

Biden, during Tuesday's speech, also plans to describe in detail what some states' new laws are doing that restricts access to voting.

"He's quite focused on ensuring the American people understand what's at stake here.

Albright added: "There's no sense in having 40 years of Senate experience only to tell us that you can't whip two votes."

Prominent Georgia leader Stacey Abrams -- arguably the Democratic Party's preeminent voting rights advocate after using her 2018 gubernatorial loss to Republican Brian Kemp to elevate the issue -- will not attend Biden's speech due to a conflict, a spokesman said.

Morgan said she wants the President to be personally appealing to senators in order to get the voting rights legislation passed.

"Right now, in state after state, new laws are being written -- not to protect the vote, but to deny it; not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it; not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former President lost," Biden said last week.

"Instead of looking at the election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former President and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections," Biden said.

And frankly, it's un-American."

The President said later in the speech that "we have to be firm, resolute, and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and to have that vote counted."

Republicans aligned with Trump in several states are pressing ahead at the state level to change voting procedures, conduct partisan investigations of the last presidential contest and seize more control over the machinery of elections.

The President plans to use Georgia as an example of these states, the White House official said.

In his speech, Biden will highlight "that after Georgians decisively voted for new leadership in 2020, Republicans in the legislature decided that they could not win on the merits of their ideas and instead passed a voter suppression law that targeted mail-in voting, limited precincts in areas that didn't vote the way they wanted, and empowered partisans in the state legislature to manipulate local boards of election," the official said.

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