Members of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family demanded Monday that the Senate scrap the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation as they led a D.C. march on the holiday honoring the civil rights icon.
King’s son, Martin Luther King III, his wife Arndrea Waters King and their teenager daughter, Yolanda Renee King, joined several hundred other activists and residents in a frigid walk across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. The bridge, they said, symbolized Congress’s support for the recently approved $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
“You delivered for bridges,” march organizers said on their website, “now deliver voting rights.”
The group planned to join the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Walk on its two-mile route along Martin Luther King Avenue SE. They then were scheduled to attend a news conference at Union Station with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other House members to call on the Senate to avoid a filibuster and pass the voting rights bill.
“From the Civil War to the Jim Crow era, the filibuster has blocked popular bills to stop lynching, end poll taxes, and fight workplace discrimination,” organizers said on their website. “Now it’s being used to block voting rights. The weaponization of the filibuster is racism cloaked in procedure and it must go.”
The King family also participated with hundreds of others in a march Saturday in Phoenix, according to media reports.MLK Day: King family prepares to lead D.C. march for voting rights
The “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act,” passed by the House last week, is scheduled for Senate consideration as early as Tuesday. However, its passage is in doubt because Democrats lack the votes to change the rules to avoid a filibuster from Republican opponents. Supporters’ efforts suffered a blow last week when Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) said they would oppose attempts to change the filibuster rules.
The Democratic senators’ opposition also marked a defeat for President Biden, who had personally appealed for congressional support to end the filibuster following a major voting rights speech in Atlanta. Biden said the Senate should eliminate the filibuster if necessary to at least debate the legislation, calling recent state limits on voting access a “threat to our democracy.”Biden calls for ending filibuster in major voting rights speech
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said he could start debate on the voting rights bill with a simple majority of 51 votes because of rules that govern the way it passed the House. However, unless the Senate changes the filibuster rules, 60 votes would still be required to end debate and move to a vote.
The Senate is split 50-50, and voting rights measures have lacked Republican support.Schumer sets up final Senate confrontation on voting rights and the filibuster
GOP-led legislatures, many spurred by President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, have recently passed voting restrictions, including expanding ID requirements and limiting early voting and voting by mail. Democrats and civil rights leaders say those changes will suppress the vote, particularly among minorities, while Republicans say they need to prevent voter fraud and restore public faith in the electoral process.
The pending legislation would establish national standards for voter registration, early voting, voting by mail and permissible voter IDs. It also would make Election Day a federal holiday and restore federal legal authority over certain voting changes in states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination, according to reports.
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What's Up Team
! am 85+ yrs old, I was in the Marine Corps when I became eligible to vote by absentee ballet, I voted then and every election since. I agree that the voting places need to be more secure and a picture ID needed. I don’t know about drop spots we take ours to city hall and drop them off there. The U.S. is to concerned with other countries being legal and up front and let ours go to hell. I do not doubt illegal voting, I have no idea how much but just 1 is to many. Lets take care of our own house before someone else’s!
the old marine
The “voting rights bill” isn’t that at all. It’s a Democrat “easy to cheat” bill. It’s a Federal take-over of voting, which is a violation of the Constitution. Of course, an ID should be required to vote. That’s not voter suppression; it’s voter integrity. I don’t want my legitimate votes cancelled out by someone who is not entitled to vote.
Great family people wonder why Black Lives Matter .This is why they keep getting put down .It is time white people need to get involved.Shame on America .
All they are, are more black troublemakers raising hell to allow commiecrats to cheat and steal more elections. I always said that King was nothing but a communist troublemaker. Looks like his descendents are cut out of the same cloth.
Another The black entitlement plan to make white people look bad went that will backfire and white people and other races will hate them even more the dirtbag communist Democrats never stop being complete timing A-holes they have to be wiped off the face of the earth permanently to get our country bad.
If MLK,Jr was alive today he would blast his family as idiots for their march for the democRATS bill to cheat Americans from a future of fair elections, these idiots need to take the proposed bill in hand and let someone who knows what it stands for explain it to them, not just this family but every voter needs to get someone to explain the bill if they don’t know what it will do to tear this country apart