President Joe Biden on Tuesday launched an assault on attempts by Republican-controlled states to change voting rights laws, blasting t...
President Joe Biden on Tuesday launched an assault on attempts by Republican-controlled states to change voting rights laws, blasting them as a 'threat to democracy' and vowing to protect 'free and fair elections.'
'This is election subversion. It is the most dangerous threat to voting in the integrity of free and fair elections in our history,' he said, speaking at the historic National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Voting issues have become a top priority for both parties.
Republicans say their new laws protect election security and argue the federal government shouldn't be involved in a state issue. Democrats claim the state laws will make it harder to vote, particularly for minority groups, which tend to vote Democratic.
In a 25-minute speech that traced the history of the voting rights movement, Biden veered between attacks on Donald Trump and Republicans who are undermining confidence in American elections and defending his own administration's work on the voting rights.
His speech came as faces criticism from Democrats, including some of his faithful supporters, that he has not done enough on the issue amid fears his party could lose control of the House and Senate in next year's midterm election.
Biden called on Congress to pass Democrats' two key voting rights legislation, which are being held up by GOP lawmakers. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has called them 'a craven political calculation' that shows 'disdain for the American people.'
But, in his remarks, Biden offered few solid ideas on how to counter the new round of state laws. He did not mention the Senate filibuster, which many of his Democratic allies want to be removed as an obstacle to federal voting rights legislation.
'I'm not filibustering now,' Biden said after his speech, when reporters asked him about the issue.
President Joe Biden launched a counter assault to attempts by states to change voting rights laws, blasting the 'threat to democracy' and vowing to project 'free and fair elections'
Biden spoke at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, just steps from Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed
President Biden spoke with supporters after his speech
Biden targeted Trump in his speech even as he did not mention his predecessor by name. But he made it clear who he was referring to as he denounced the 'big lie' along with the 'bullies and merchants of fear and peddlers of lies.'
'The Big Lie is just that - a big lie,' he said, referring to Trump's false claim that he won the 2020 election. Trump called Biden's victory 'the big lie' and falsely claimed to be the victim of voting fraud.
The crowd - nearly 300 people made up of local elected officials, national and local civil rights leaders, voting rights advocates, labor leaders and other officials - burst into applause.
'In America, if you lose, you accept the results, you follow the constitution,' Biden said, referring to Trump's continual attempts to cast doubt on the 2020 results.
'You try again. You don't call facts fake, and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you're unhappy. That's not statesmanship. That's selfishness,' he added.
He also blasted a litany of events that he said hurt Americans' right to vote, including poll taxes, literacy tests, terrorizing voters in the 1950s and 60s, and even a recent Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act.
Biden made the case that the right to vote is the most essential, fundamental one to America's democracy.
'Perhaps the most important of those things, the most fundamental of those things, is the right to vote freely, the right to vote fairly, the right to have your vote counted,' he said.
'It's up to all of us to protect that right. This is a test of our time,' he declared.
'Time and again we've had further threats to the right to vote, free and fair elections, and each time we found a way to overcome,' he said.
He blasted the spate of state laws that have been passed restricting voting rights. As of June 21, 17 states enacted 28 new laws that restrict access to right to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
'Republican members of the state legislatures are trying to pass 21st century Jim Crow laws,' the president said in remarks at the National Constitution Center.
'They want to make it so hard and inconvenient they hope people don't vote at all. That's what this is about,' he noted.
'Have you no shame?,' he asked those Republican state legislatures.
He described the laws as 'odious' and 'vicious.' He praised civil rights groups that are challenging them in courts.
And he called the state laws the most significant threat to democracy since the Civil War, adding that not even the Confederate Army breached the U.S. Capitol building, unlike the MAGA supporters on January 6th, who attempted to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.
'We're facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. Confederate back then never breached the Capital as insurrectionists did on January 6th. I'm saying not this to alarm but because you should alarmed,' he said.
President Joe Biden greets people as he arrives to deliver his speech on voting rights
There were nearly 300 people in attendance and the audience as made up of local elected officials, national and local civil rights leaders, voting rights advocates, labor leaders and other officials
President Joe Biden talks with the Rev. Al Sharpton after his speech
Attendees take pictures of President Bien at the National Constitution Center
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