In SC, Biden pledges fight for voting rights, police reform
ORANGEBURG, S.C. — President Joe Biden saluted a class of graduates at South Carolina State University on Friday and presented a diploma to one of the school’s most prominent alumni, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., whose endorsement helped save Biden’s presidential bid in 2020.
But his appearance at a historically Black university was largely an ode to the Black voters who have nurtured his political career, a denunciation of racism and a vow to pass a wide range of legislation to help Black communities — legislation that has largely stalled near the end of Biden’s first year in office.
Chief among those bills is an effort to expand voting rights, such as a bill recently blocked by Senate Republicans that would have restored parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act, in the face of efforts by Republican-led states to restrict access to voting. Democrats have pressed for Senate action on that legislation by year’s end but have yet to find agreement on any plan that could bypass a Republican filibuster.
Biden promised to find a path forward for the effort, although he did not detail how.
“We have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake,” he said. “We’re going to keep up the fight until we get it done.”
Biden used the speech to champion provisions in one of the biggest victories of his presidency: an infrastructure bill he signed into law this fall, including money to replace leadwater pipes that poison Black children, to create jobs for Black engineers and to bring high-speed internet to every community in the country.
He also acknowledged that he had not delivered on other promises he made to Black voters, who were a pillar of his victories in the Democratic primaries and the general election.
He told the more than 75 graduates and their families that “the fight’s not over!” on legislation to overhaul policing in the United States. Bipartisan negotiations on a policing bill, led in part by Sen.
Tim Scott, R-S.C., collapsed in September with both parties declaring that their differences were too wide to bridge.
The appearance of a sitting president at a fall commencement ceremony was entirely the work of Clyburn, who graduated from South Carolina State in 1961 but did not walk across a stage to receive his diploma. He had been invited by the school to do so this year, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of earning his diploma, and to deliver the keynote address. But Clyburn had a better idea, he told the graduates.
He called Cedric Richmond, director of Biden’s Office of Public Engagement, to tell him he would be marching with the graduating class to receive his diploma — and he wanted help securing the speaker.
“I told him,” Clyburn said, “I think it would be great to get my degree from the president of the United States, Joe Biden.”
Biden, he said, immediately accepted.
Clyburn urged graduates to thank their parents and other supporters of their college journeys.