With gaffe on voting rights, Mitch McConnell confirms what many already fear
Of course, Sen. Mitch McConnell made a gaffe on Thursday when he said that African-Americans were voting at the same rate as Americans, leaving out the word “white.”
But sometimes gaffes have a way of stating the truth. McConnell was explaining why democracy was in fine shape, despite the failure of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to progress in the U.S. Senate. And for white Americans, the rich white ones that Mitch works hard to represent, that’s probably true. Attempts to overturn the filibuster — used many times against civil rights legislation — failed. McConnell thinks we should suspend the filibuster only when he’s trying to pack the U.S. Supreme Court as he did in 2017.
For “other” Americans, the ones whose interests are not such a priority for McConnell, democracy doesn’t look so robust. So far, 19 state legislatures have passed 34 laws that add new voting restrictions. The federal bill would attempt to restore federal oversight of states that have had historical problems with allowing minorities to vote, such as Alabama, where John Lewis almost died at the hands of state troopers when he marched for the rights of Black people to vote.
Democrats like Sen. Rand Paul challenger Charles Booker jumped on McConnell: “Mitch has never cared about us. And today, he just happened to speak his mind, and said the quiet part out loud.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gaffe-voting-rights-mitch-mcconnell-203843704.html
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