Joe Biden has no other choice: the US president will have to convince, Thursday, all Democratic senators, without exception, to forcefully pass electoral reform protecting African-Americans’ access to the vote, with which he hopes to revive his silted presidency. The tenant of the White House has promised to protect access to the ballot boxes for minorities and the transparency of voting operations. However, the Democrats will undoubtedly have to force their way to save this electoral reform: yet, very respectful of parliamentary procedure, Joe Biden announces that he wants to change the rules to pass electoral reform. The objective for the former senator: to avoid another failure after the freezing of the great social and environmental spending plan called “Build Back Better”.
Facts. Joe Biden wishes to protect access to the ballot boxes for minorities and the transparency of voting operations, in the face of a multitude of reforms undertaken by conservative states, in particular in the south of the country. NGOs assure that these measures adopted by Republicans particularly discriminate against African Americans, who overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden in the last election. To stop it, two texts – now merged into one – aim to harmonize voting practices and give the federal state a right of scrutiny over local initiatives. Joe Biden believes that the achievements of the fight for civil rights of the 1960s, acquired locally by Republicans, with the blessing of a Supreme Court that has become very conservative, and with the encouragement of Donald Trump who continues to claim without proof that the election of his successor is fraudulent.
Why it matters. To pass this law, it would take in theory 60 votes, to conform to a very entrenched parliamentary usage. This “filibuster rule” is supposed to encourage moderation and dialogue across partisan lines, but it actually gives the opposition enormous blocking power, especially when the parliamentary balance of power is as strained as it is. is today. The Democrats have only one solution to save their electoral reform: to break this parliamentary practice and to pass in force to the simple majority.
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In this scenario, after procedural votes this weekend, the electoral reform itself could be passed on Sunday, or, very symbolically, Monday, January 16. Which is a public holiday in the United States in memory of Martin Luther King, icon of the struggle for civil rights. The White House must convince West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Another moderate senator, Kyrsten Sinema, already said Thursday to oppose the strategy proposed by Joe Biden. It is this blasting of the “filibuster rule” that the two moderate senators – moreover in favor of the reform itself – taste little. Too authoritarian, believe the two elected and likely to come back to them like a boomerang if the Republicans, which is quite possible, take a majority in the Senate in legislative elections in the fall. As for the Republicans, they are extremely upset. Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, accused Joe Biden on Thursday of taking a “scandalous and divisive” path.
In what context. The US president’s offensive gives a strong impression of déjà vu. In December, in fact, the Democrat found himself in exactly the same position: having to mobilize without exception all the votes of his majority in the Senate (51 including the vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris, against 50 for the Republicans) around ‘a very ambitious social spending project. The tortuous negotiations turned into a dialogue between the White House and one man, Joe Manchin. Until a brutal outcome on December 19, when this centrist, on his own, derailed this $ 1,750 billion project, attracting an acid response from the White House.
Joe Biden, already very unpopular, cannot afford to fail again. “The honeymoon has come to an end, and it is inevitable, at this point, that the popularity of the president will decline,” moderated Bruce Buchanan, presidential expert at the University of Texas in mid-December. L’Express. Abandoning his posture of debonair unifier, he has just delivered two speeches of unprecedented virulence, in Capitol and then in Georgia, to defend this new legislation on the vote, and accuse the Republicans of undermining, purely and simply, the exercise of the Universal suffrage. Speaking of a “turning point” for the United States, the 79-year-old Democrat assured that “every member of the Senate would be judged by history”.
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