At a time when he has been unable to get stronger voting protections through Congress and a conservative Supreme Court has struck down key voting legislation, President Joe Biden used the harrowing memories of Selma’s “Bloody Sunday” to recommit to a pillar of democracy.
“Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote … to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty. With it anything’s possible,” Biden declared to a gathering of several thousand people gathered on one side of the illustrious Edmund Pettus Bridge, which bears the name of a notorious Ku Klux Klan leader.
Biden pledged to pursue comprehensive legislation to strengthen the preservation of voting rights as a candidate in 2020
“This fundamental right remains under assault. The conservative Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act over the years. Since the 2020 election, a wave of states and dozens and dozens of anti-voting laws fueled by the ‘Big Lie’ and the election deniers now elected to office,” he said.
It passed the then-Democratic-controlled House, but it failed to draw the 60 votes needed to advance in a Senate under control by Biden’s party. With Republicans now running the House, the passage of such legislation is highly unlikely.
Biden pledged to pursue comprehensive legislation to strengthen the preservation of voting rights as candidate in 2020. His 2021 legislation, which was passed two years ago and was titled in honor of the late Georgia congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis, contained provisions to limit partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, remove barriers to voting, and make the opaque campaign finance system more open.
Biden had the chance to directly address the young civil rights leaders during his visit to Selma
Although it was approved by the then-Democratic-controlled House, Biden’s party’s Senate majority was insufficient to give it the 60 votes needed to move forward. Passage of such legislation is extremely unlikely given that Republicans are currently in control of the House.
“We know we must get the votes in Congress,” Biden said, but there seems no viable path right now.
Biden had the chance to directly address the young civil rights leaders during his visit to Selma. Many people are eager for his administration to keep the topic in the spotlight because they feel let down by the lack of advancement in voting rights.
Few events in the history of the civil rights struggle have had as long-lasting an impact as what occurred in Selma on March 7, 1965, and the weeks that followed.
Just a few weeks had passed after the tragic shooting of a young Black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by an Alabama trooper, when 600 nonviolent protesters, headed by Lewis and activist Hosea Williams, assembled that day.
