Former President Barack Obama spoke out on Monday to say that he is confidant that the Senate will hold a new vote on the Democratic voting rights bill that Republicans in the upper chamber blocked last week.
Obama Sounds Off
In his first fundraising call since the 2020 elections, Obama teamed up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and his former Attorney General Eric Holder to try and garner support for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC).
“I have every confidence that Nancy working in conjunction with [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and others, including people like [Sen.] Joe Manchin, are going to figure out a way in which there’s an up and down vote on the For the People Act,” Obama said, according to The Hill.
This comes after the voting rights bill being pushed by Democrats failed in a 50-50 procedural vote in the Senate, falling far short of the 60-vote majority needed to overcome the Senate filibuster.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which is also being pushed by Democrats, remains alive in Congress and appears to some to have some chance of bipartisan support.
Obama Issues Warning
Obama issued a warning about what he feels will happen if the voting rights bill fails in the face of “major strategies to reduce the impact of universal suffrage.”
“If we don’t stop these kinds of efforts now, [what] we are going to see is more and more contested elections — contested not in the sense of healthy competition but contested in terms of who wins, who loses,” Obama stated. “We are going to see a further delegitimizing of our democracy.”
“And not only are we going to see more unfairness in terms of results and who is represented and who isn’t, but we are going to see a breakdown of the basic agreement that has held this magnificent democratic experiment together,” he continued.
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Obama Slams Trump
Obama also slammed Donald Trump for claiming that he was a victim of election fraud.
“What we saw was my successor, the former president, violate that core tenet that we count the votes and then declare a winner and fabricate and make up a whole bunch of hooey,” Obama said.
Pelosi spoke up to blame Republican opposition to the bill on its campaign finance reform proposals to change “the role of big dark special interest money in politics.”
“For this and other reasons we’re meeting some resistance in the Senate, but I’m not giving up on that,” said Pelosi.
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As for Holder, he’s confidant that the voting rights bill will pass through Congress.
“Last week’s vote I think proves that Democrats, at least, we are united in pursuing a bill to protect the right to vote in America. This is a preliminary step but we saw united Democratic support there and that is obviously just the beginning of a battle in the Senate,” said Holder.
“We’re committed, no matter what it takes, to helping the For the People Act reach President Biden’s desk so that he can sign it into law,” he added.
This piece was written by James Samson on June 28, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
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