Georgia voting activists will not attend President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Atlanta remarks to push for federal voting legislation after warning the White House not to visit without a concrete plan for action.
Organizers from the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, and the GALEO Impact Action Fund, which represents Latinos, said in a Zoom call Monday that Biden and Harris should focus on making progress in Washington instead of performing sweeping gestures. Otherwise, they should skip the visit.
“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, signing off from the call.
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Democrats have argued Georgia is ground zero for their state-level fight on election rules and is the home state of the late Rep. John Lewis, whose namesake legislation is languishing in Congress.
The groups will host a press conference after the leaders’ remarks on Tuesday.
Activists have voiced frustration with the Biden administration’s efforts to date, including with Harris, who, at her request, is leading the White House’s push.
While under pressure to deliver, Biden and Harris are limited in how much they can do. Senate Democrats are expected to vote on new election and voting standards, but the measure is expected to fail. In response, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to push a bid to change the Senate’s filibuster rules by Jan. 17.
Asked Monday whether the president believes he has the political clout to shift the dynamic, press secretary Jen Psaki demurred.
“Really, what we’re talking about is whether we can get enough votes in Congress,” she said.
In a statement that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, the groups called the visit “an entry gesture” and pointed to Biden’s victory in the state and Democrats’ wins in the Senate races last January.
“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the US Senate,” the statement read. “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.”
The White House said Biden and Harris would talk about the importance of passing new voting and election standards.
The two leaders “will speak to the American people about the urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections,” the White House said in a statement.
The remarks will take place at the Atlanta University Center Consortium on the grounds of Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College, two historically black colleges.
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Biden and Harris will also visit Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached from 1960 until his assassination in 1968 and where Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is a pastor. While there, they will lay a wreath at the crypts of King Jr. and his wife, Coretta.
