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President Biden and the main Congressional Democrats are expected to meet at the White House on Friday to discuss their party’s hesitant efforts to pass major voting rights legislation, according to two Congressional advisers familiar with the plans.
Mr Biden’s meeting with President Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York comes at a crucial time as activists push the president to use his power and Democratic control over Congress to protect rights to vote as long as they have the opportunity. Republican-led states have enacted at least 30 new laws containing a host of new voting restrictions, and GOP senators have blocked consideration of a Democratic bill that would impose sweeping new federal mandates aimed at circumventing them .
Party leaders don’t have many options for breaking the deadlock. In June, Republicans succeeded in blocking Democrats’ flagship election legislation, called the People’s Law, by obstructing it. Democrats’ hopes of changing Senate filibuster rules to bypass Republicans have faded as a few holdouts within the party continue to oppose such a move. And their window for legislative action is narrow.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting. The two congressional aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans, warned that the meeting schedule was still being finalized.
Democrats are set to finalize a scaled-down bill that activists say could be a ram in the fight against filibuster. The party is also preparing legislation to strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and lawmakers have discussed incorporating the voting provisions into the $ 3.5 trillion budget plan put forward to the Senate, which they can pass. unilaterally against the opposition of the Republicans. But the GOP is largely opposed to all three.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, confirmed Thursday that a small group of Democratic senators had met to develop a revised bill that could be released in the coming days. Among them is Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a moderate who balked at some of the For the People Act’s broader proposals and was determined to keep the filibuster intact.
“It’s not one of those ‘Oh maybe we’ll get there,'” Ms Klobuchar said Thursday during a call organized by SiX Action, a progressive group, saying the emerging measure would have provisions on gerrymandering, mail voting and automatic voter registration. “We are very close to getting agreement on this bill.”
There is no indication that a deal between a small group of Democrats would attract more Republican support than previous proposals. But activists and progressives want the revised measure to be put to a vote before the Senate leaves Washington for its August recess, anticipating it would fail and step up pressure to dismantle the filibuster.
Mr Schumer has yet to commit to a timeline, and it is unclear whether he would want a real obstruction fight to take place as he and Mr Biden attempt to push through a draft bipartite law on infrastructure in the Senate.
The revised electoral legislation hinges on a rough framework provided by Mr Manchin earlier this year. States are expected to provide 15 days of in-person early voting, including at least two Sundays; national expansion of postal voting; the end of partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts; a national voter identification requirement; and campaign finance provisions that would require super PACs to disclose the identity of their major donors.
The drafters of the bill also plan to include language intended to undermine state laws in places like Georgia that they believe would allow elected Republican officials to corrupt election results to favor their candidates. Federal lawmakers specifically want to make it harder for their state counterparts to remove local election officials and more difficult for observers who support polls to intimidate voters and election workers. They also want to make the process of challenging anyone’s ability to register to vote more difficult.
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