President Joe Biden, in a speech Tuesday in Atlanta, will directly challenge the “institution of the United States Senate” to support voting rights by backing two major pieces of legislation and the carving out of an exception to the Senate’s 60-vote requirement.
Coming a week before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Biden’s speech at the Atlanta University Center Consortium on Tuesday afternoon will serve as a follow-up to a speech he delivered last week on the first anniversary of the U.S. Capitol riot. He will argue that the two pieces of legislation ― the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act ― are critical to ensure that the turmoil of Jan. 6, 2021, leads to a revival of American democracy rather than its decline.
