- White House officials told civil rights leaders that they could "out-organized voter suppression"
- 150 civil rights organizations signed a letter Thursday pressuring Biden to do more on
voting rights - Biden last week called the wave of new voting legislation a "21st century Jim Crow assault."
White House officials have told voting rights groups and civil rights leaders that they believe it's possible to "out-organize voter suppression," sources familiar with the conversations told the New York Times.
The report comes as two key voting rights bills -- the
Advocates have reportedly become frustrated with the White House, pointing to a perceived lack of involvement by Biden and his insistence on maintaining the "filibuster," a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate.
The letter comes amid a wave of bills in state legislatures around the country aimed at restricting access to voting. Last week, Biden delivered a speech on voting rights at the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia, where he called the wave of legislation a "21st century Jim Crow assault."
The groups call out the filibuster as a key obstacle to passing voting rights legislation. "We certainly cannot allow an arcane Senate procedural rule to derail efforts that a majority of Americans support," reads the letter, citing a poll that shows that roughly 70% of Americans support both bills.
But on Wednesday, President Biden said at a CNN Town Hall that eliminating the filibuster would "throw the entire Congress into chaos."
-POLITICO (@politico) July 22, 2021
Some Democratic members of Congress reacted negatively to the New York Times report. Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) -- who was reportedly met with an "awkward silence" in June after urging Biden to get more involved in pushing voting rights legislation -- tweeted that the White House was taking "for granted the black and brown communities that bear the brunt of voter suppression."
-Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) July 23, 2021
And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), while acknowledging that it may be possible to overcome voter suppression measures through organizing, tweeted "we can't out-organize gerrymandering."
-Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) July 23, 2021