Stacey Abrams calls for congressional voting-rights action ahead of second race

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Abrams said senators need to override Republican opposition to new federal voting guarantees by weakening the legislation-blocking filibuster to allow the Democrats’ bare majority to pass new rules. Otherwise, Abrams said, more Republican-dominated state legislatures nationwide will adopt voting restrictions as Georgia did this year.

See: Amid outcry, Georgia governor signs bill restricting voting into law

From the archives (March 2021): Voting rights intensify as partisan battleground, with Democrats pushing H.R. 1 and Republicans altering election procedures at state level

Also (March 2021): Raphael Warnock says Republican efforts to shift voting practices in Georgia and other states represent Jim Crow revanchism

President Joe Biden, who spent four decades in the U.S. Senate and has long been viewed as an ardent defender of the chamber’s traditions, signaled a shift this week in his thinking on the filibuster.

In response to a question from David Muir of ABC News during a wide-ranging interview, the president lent his support for the first time to a filibuster carve-out for voting rights, much as has occurred for nominations to the federal bench and later the Supreme Court. A bipartisan agreement also was reached this month to suspend the filibuster and allow Democrats to lift the ceiling on federal debt without requiring Republicans to cast a vote for the measure.

“Starting in January, when legislators come back into session in 2022, we’re going to see a maelstrom of voter suppression laws. I understand the resistance to completely dismantling the filibuster. But I do believe there’s a way to restore the Senate to a working body so that things like defending democracy can actually take place.”

Abrams lost narrowly to Republican Brian Kemp in 2018 after becoming the first Black woman to ever become a major party’s nominee for governor. She maintains that Kemp used his position as secretary of state to unfairly tip the scales in his favor by doing things like purging voters from the rolls. Kemp, who accused Democrats of hacking in the wake of what experts later determined was planned securities testing of election systems and amid reports of prospective system vulnerabilities, denies wrongdoing.

Abrams’s loss and her response, including forming a new voting group called Fair Fight, vaulted her to national prominence among Democrats.

From the archives (November 2018): Georgia’s Kemp accuses Democrats of hacking; Abrams dismisses claim as distraction

Plus (January 2020): Election-security expert says publicly exposed Georgia server looks to have been hacked

This year, Republicans pushed through a new voting law in Georgia…