Opinion: Georgia voting activists want to turn Biden away. They've got the wrong guy - Capehart
After months of justified complaints that the White House was prioritizing everything except preserving voting rights, President Biden and Vice President Harris will head to Georgia on Tuesday to bring their spotlight to the fight. But a high-profile group of Peach State voting rights organizations is saying, “Don’t come.” While the passion fueling their argument is understandable, their actual argument is not. They’ve got the wrong target, and the wrong tack.
“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate. In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises,” the five organizations wrote. “As civil rights leaders and advocates, we reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law; anything less is insufficient and unwelcome.”
Biden is neither an empowered king nor an autocrat. In our system of equal branches of government, whatever plan the advocates are demanding from Biden will have to stand on its own in Congress. Thanks to Georgia voters and the two Democrats they sent to the Senate, that party does have control of the chamber, but only by Harris’s tiebreaking vote. That dynamic gives recalcitrant Republicans and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) incredible and irritating sway.
Biden and Harris are going to Georgia to do the one thing they absolutely can do: use the bully pulpit to drum up public support and pressure those standing in the way of progress. Biden must use the occasion to call for a filibuster carve-out for voting rights. And instead of railing against Biden and Harris, advocates should focus on convincing Manchin and Sinema that adherence to a Senate rule in the face of glaring voter suppression and potential voter subversion is a threat to democracy. More importantly, though, where are the Republicans? Not only are they silent, but they have stopped votes even to debate the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
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What advocates in Georgia should be demanding is that Republicans do their part to protect voting rights and help save our teetering democracy. We all should be. According to an analysis by The Post, “At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false claims are running for statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/11/georgia-voting-rights-activists-biden-dont-come
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