Republicans on Wednesday blocked the Senate from starting debate on a voting rights bill named after the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), marking the latest setback for Democrats in their push for new elections legislation.
Democrats hope that a filibuster of a measure named for former Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon, will help build momentum for a change in Senate rules.
be screaming at the top of his lungs, using that bully pulpit about the potential threat these bills pose to america s democracy. he could call on the senate to blow up the filibuster, to pass the elections bill that has already passed the house, that would supersede these state bills. why isn t this his top priority? or is it? well, look, i think democrats in washington are still trying to figure out exactly how to address that. i mean, clearly there is more that democrats can try to do right now, but due to the filibuster in the senate, there are even even if they blew up the filibuster in the senate, there are at least two senate democrats who have expressed concern about one of the top voting rights bills that has been a priority for biden, and of course house democrats who have already passed this legislation. there has, however, been talk about a second voting rights bill, a little bit of talk behind the scenes, it wouldn t be as expansive as the original that can t pass the
ghost town a year ago, now the tsa has screened more than 1.6 million people at airports across the country, just yesterday, compare that to the same day back in 2020, when only 350,000 people flew nationwide. the pandemic air travel records set only back on friday won 1.96 americans flew, maybe we could see the 2 million mark, a number we have not seen since march of 2020. the story not just about air travel. aaa expects 37 million meshs will travel 50 miles or more during this holiday weekend, 34 million of them by car, the numbers not that far off from where we were in 2019. those driving will face a bit of a rude awakening when it comes to gas prices, the highest they have been in seven years. the national average for a gallon of gas, $3.05, up a dollar from where we were a year ago, clearly a lot of people
u.s. since the pandemic began. crowds packing beaches, and airports today, we ll have more on that. just ahead, but first we begin in texas, where the war on voting is taking a surprising turn. democrats staging a walk-out during a legislative session last night. that stopped a controversial gop voting bill from becoming law, for now at least, known as senate bill 7, it would ban some mail-in applications, it would reduce voting hours, it would stop drive-through voting all together, among other things that it does. republicans are still going to press forward, they say, they can now have a special session that governor greg abbott says will happen. i asked a democratic state senator, a lawmaker there last hour, why her party did this. we delayed a bullet train to suppression, to voter suppression, and it was important to delay it so that we can we can shine some light on what this leadership is doing. so, yes, inevitably we are going