Biden signs voting rights order for anniversary of Selma’s 1965 ‘Bloody Sunday’ march
Updated Mar 07, 2021;
Posted Mar 07, 2021
US Vice President Joe Biden helps lead the annual crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, commemorating Bloody Sunday, the violent 1965 clash between law enforcement and protestors on the historic bridge during a march for voting rights, Sunday, March 03, 2013, in Selma, Ala. Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com ORG XMIT: ALBIN101AP
Facebook Share
Biden also signed an executive order aimed at expanding voting rights access.
“Today, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, I am signing an executive order to make it easier for eligible voters to register to vote and to improve access to voting,” Biden said in his remarks prepared for the breakfast.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy. Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended. But many Americans, especially people of color, confront significant obstacles to exercising that fundamental right. These obstacles include difficulties with voter registration, lack of election information, and barriers to access at polling places. For generations, Black voters and other voters of color have faced discriminatory policies and other obstacles that disproportionally affect their communities. These voters remain more likely to face long lines at the polls and are disproportionately burdened by voter identification laws and limited opportunities to vote by mail. Limited access to language assistance remains a barrier for
Six or nine months from now, when the child credit needs to be extended, “pro-family” Republicans will be unified against it. Democrats need to be savage in their attacks on the GOP for that.
I’m grumpy about the minimum wage, (and that fight isn’t over), but I think Biden, Harris, and the team’s strategy folks are teeing up a powerful economic message, and total Republican opposition is really risky given the 70% across the board public support.
And the profligate waste of the Trump-Ryan tax cut helps wipe out all the deficit scold idiocy that is no-doubt coming.