I received push-back from readers regarding my article Time to Reform the Filibuster based on the importance of restoring bipartisanship in the Congress. While I am aware that President Biden is an advocate for bipartisanship, and agree it is a preferable way for the country to be governed, I remain convinced that in this post-Trump environment it will be impossible to achieve.
Despite the fact that 70 percent of Americans (including 59 percent of Republican voters) favored the COVID relief bill, not one congressional Republican voted for it. Sen. Mitch McConnell's response to President Biden's proposed infrastructure bill was that it "is not going to get support from our side." Moreover, we're in the midst of a Republican attack on voting rights, going on throughout the country, which can only be avoided by the Democratic Senate passing SB 1.
There are now 253 bills pending in 43 Republican-controlled state legislatures to restrict voting rights. The restrictions include limiting mail-in voting, restrictions on early voting, and reduced voter registration opportunities. Indeed, in Georgia the law makes it a crime to give voters, waiting in long lines, water or food. Despite the fact that those lines, in the 2020 election, were created by Republicans closing polling places in minority neighborhoods. President Biden rightly called these laws "un-American [and] sick." He needs to further and clearly advocate for the reform of the filibuster or these" sick" laws will undermine both our democracy and his agenda.