U.S Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill

U.S Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill
U.S Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill
United States Republicans have blocked the voting rights election bill, a knock for President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Gatekeepers News reports that the Senate on Tuesday voted 50-50 on the election bill titled, For the People Act.

The bill would have introduced 15 days of early voting, made election day a public holiday, and guaranteed automatic voter registration for anyone with a driver’s licence.

Democrats argued that the bill would have also ensured more transparency for certain campaign contributions and limited partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts.

Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has been assigned by the White House to push election reform, was presiding over the chamber as the bill failed.

“The fight’s not over,” she said after the vote.

Biden said the issue was the “fight of his presidency”, following January 6 riot at the U.S Capitol which was instigated by immediate past President Donald Trump who claimed his mandate was stolen.

Gatekeepers News reports that before the vote on Tuesday, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said: “Are we going to let reactionary state legislatures drag us back into the muck of voter suppression?

“Are we going to let the most dishonest president in history continue to poison our democracy from the inside?”

Republicans, however, maintained that the almost 900-page proposal was a federal power grab against the authority of individual U.S states to ensure the integrity of their elections, designed purely to benefit Democrats.

Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell said: “It’s always been a plan to rewrite the ground rules of American politics.”

Gatekeepers News reports that some Democrats blamed Biden for not campaigning for the bill energetically enough.

“He’s not absent, but he needs to be a lot more vocal and a lot more out front,” said Jamaal Bowman, a New York congressman, on CNN.