■ Democrats in Washington decried Georgia’s voting restrictions.
Biden, party make case for election reform bill
Democrats on Friday seized on new voting restrictions in Georgia to focus attention on the fight to overhaul federal election laws.
In fiery speeches, pointed statements and tweets, party leaders decried the law signed Thursday by the state’s Republican governor. President Joe Biden released an extended statement, calling the law an attack on “good conscience” that denies the right to vote for “countless” Americans.
“This is Jim Crow in the 21st century,” Biden said. “It must end. We have a moral and constitutional obligation to act,” he said. He told reporters the Georgia law is an “atrocity” and that the Justice Department is looking into it.
Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, lashed back, accusing Biden of attempting to “destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box” by supporting what the governor sees as federal intrusion into state responsibilities.
Behind the chorus of outrage, Democrats are also wrestling with the limits on their power in Washington, as long as Senate filibuster rules allow Republicans to block major legislation, including H.R. 1, a sweeping elections bill now pending in the Senate.
Biden and his party are seeking to build and sustain momentum in the realm of public opinion — hoping to nationalize what has so far been a Republican-led state-by-state movement to curb access to the ballot — while they begin a slow, plodding legislative process. Allies plan to fight the Georgia law, and others, in court.
Meanwhile, the political fight was intensifying in Georgia. Just as Kemp and several state lawmakers celebrated the signing of the state’s new voting law Thursday, state police officers handcuffed and forcibly removed state Rep. Park Cannon, a Black woman, after she knocked on the door of the governor’s private office.
Cannon was charged with obstruction of law enforcement and disruption of the General Assembly, both felonies. She was released from jail late Thursday. An attorney representing Cannon said authorities overreached in the case.
A lawsuit filed late Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta by three groups — New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter Fund and Rise — challenged key provisions of the new Georgia law and said they violated the Voting Rights Act.