Voting Rights Protection and the Filibuster

Voter suppression legislation is presently the main business of Republican-controlled state legislatures. Stacey Abrams, who is the leading authority on voter suppression and how to counter it, appeared on the Rachel Maddow show last evening. She made clear that it’s critically important for Congress to pass voting rights protection laws. The House has already done so, but their bills can’t pass in the senate without first doing away with the “filibuster,” the requirement that passing legislation of this sort requires sixty votes in the senate rather than a simple majority. Tantalizingly, it takes only a majority vote to do away with the filibuster.

This is a great test of Biden and Congressional Democratic leaders. Can they convince two Democratic senators who have been reluctant to support doing away with the filibuster to reverse or sufficiently modify their positions so voting rights protection legislation can become law? Can they be made to understand that the fate of American democracy may depend upon it?