reason to do it, and he wants to frame this as a partisan fight to discourage manchin and sinema from taking the steps that democrats need to pass this agenda. the entire framework that mcconnell sets up is kind of ludicrous. i mean, what we are seeing is republicans in state after state are passing these restrictive voting laws on an entirely party line basis over the unified opposition of virtually every democratic state legislature voting. unified support from every republican, and then republicans in the congress are providing air support, this kind of ground offensive by locking arms against any efforts to restore federal voting rights oversight, including restoring the voting rights act, which every senate republican voted for the last time it was reauthorized, and now mcconnell is turning around and saying this is a partisan move by the democrats to respond, which is what is
room, the filibuster. but it reminds me of one marked ten luther king junior and so many others were going across that independent bridge. they didn t cross it the first or the second time. they turned around and strategized. but then there was bloody sunday. and they had got it done. i am not saying to you, we will give up. we will go back and we will get it right. because the voting rights act must be reauthorized. so we ll go back and re-craft and re-strategize. but we won t stop talking about. it we won t stop fighting for it. we won t give up. and so i am hopeful that we will get there. i am hopeful that we will have enough of the senators to do what s right. you know, someone said today that if we had state rights in washington d.c., we wouldn t have this problem. be we would have suits
the history of the voting rights act. as you said, it passed 98-0 i guess the last time it was reauthorized. the president president biden articulated last week in atlanta that, in fact, 16 senators who are in the senate today actually voted for that reauthorization. you know, this it is so unfortunate because some of the things that are happening around the states in these state legislatures actually go directly at the heart of the voting rights act and the reality is the supreme court is a court. it s not the legislature. it s the legislature, congress s job, to pass laws and the supreme court said in its holding in holder case that in fact all that congress has to do is come back and update the voting rights act, which is why the john lewis voting rights enhancement act advancement
that law just a decade ago, it passed 98-0. why don t republicans, including yourself, support restoring those the voting rights act now? so the supreme court decided, the supreme court decided that the conditions in 1965 are different than they are now. imagine that. we ve had an african-american elected president of the united states, an african-american elected to the vice presidency, an african-american elected to the senate in south carolina. now if anyone can t see circumstances have changed, they re just not believing their lying eyes. so, congresswoman edwards, just react. i don t know. my lying eyes tell me just because you have one president and one vice president and a senator, a couple of senators doesn t mean that democracy is working. and, you know, this continues to go down the line of republicans remaking history and remaking
he s implying they won t be. they re not criminalizing giving people water. they re just saying you can t walk up to them just before they walk in, give them a piece of water and tell them who to vote for. you can still give water to the people working at the poll. they can distribute it. several other things that are misleading and so did president biden. now if you are trying to call the united states of america to unity, trying to get us to where we will come to common ground, you don t end up spreading things that are untrue or frankly lies. and that s why people think we need the filibuster, otherwise you re just totally rolled by somebody willing to sacrifice truth to pursue their agenda. the senate s going to take up the democrats election reform bills this week. a key part one of them is the john lewis voting rights act which would restore provisions of the landmark 1965 voting rights act that protect against discriminatory state election laws. when the senate reauthorized t