House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised President Joe Biden’s racially charged speech on voting rights, telling reporters the effort by Democrats to pass an election overhaul bill is akin to the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
“I thought it was fabulous,” Pelosi said. “I congratulate him for it. It was well-received.”
Biden’s address in Atlanta on Wednesday, meant to increase support for passage of two partisan election overhaul bills authored by Democrats, compared those who opposed the legislation to white historical figures who backed slavery and segregation.
HOUSE SENDS VOTING RIGHTS LEGISLATION TO SENATE AHEAD OF EXPECTED VOTE
Republicans condemned the speech as extremely divisive and unpresidential, and the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, questioned Biden’s “stark” comparisons.
“Perhaps the president went a little too far in his rhetoric,” Durbin told CNN. “Some of us do, but the fundamental principles and values at stake are very, very similar.”
Pelosi didn’t criticize the tone but said Biden shouldn’t have invoked the names of historical figures, such as 1960s segregationist Bull Connor, because the public doesn’t remember them.
Instead, she said Biden should have compared opponents of the two voter overhaul bills Democrats hope to pass with “the people who unleashed the fierce dogs” on civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis.
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Pelosi praised Biden’s speech ahead of his planned visit to the Senate on Thursday when he’ll make a last-ditch attempt to convince holdout centrist Democrats to eliminate the 60-vote threshold, which would make it easier for Democrats to pass the legislation without the threat of a GOP filibuster.
Democrats hope to pass the bill by mid-January, in time to block red-state voter integrity laws they fear will make it harder for their incumbents to survive the 2022 midterm elections.
