Former President Barack Obama is confident the Senate will vote again on the voting rights bill previously blocked by Republicans.
“I have every confidence that Nancy working in conjunction with [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer, [President] Joe Biden and others, including people like [West Virginia Democratic Senator] Joe Manchin, are going to figure out a way in which there’s an up and down vote on the For The People Act,” Obama said while speaking to reporters during a fundraising call, as The Hill reports.
Obama warned if lawmakers do not stop efforts to make it more difficult to vote, “[What] we are going to see is more and more contested elections — contested not in the sense of healthy competition but contested in terms of who wins, who loses.”
He added, “We are going to see a further delegitimizing of our democracy. And not only are we going to see more unfairness in terms of results and who is represented and who isn’t, but we are going to see a breakdown of the basic agreement that has held this magnificent democratic experiment together.”
The former president took a shot at former President Donald Trump, saying the nation saw him “violate that core tenet that we count the votes and then declare a winner and fabricate and make up a whole bunch of hooey.”
Republicans blocked debate on the election reform bill last week in a 50-50 vote, as IJR reported.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed the fight for the bill is not over.
“Once again Senate Republicans have signed their names in the ledger of history alongside Donald Trump, the big lie and voter suppression to their enduring disgrace. … But I want to be very clear about one thing: The fight to protect voting rights is not over, by no means,” Schumer said.