Obama with Biden, change Senate rules for laws to protect the vote

(ANSA) - WASHINGTON, 13 JAN - With an editorial in Usa Today, the first since leaving the White House, Barack Obam takes the field to declare his "full support for President Joe Biden's appeal to change the rules of the Senate (on the filibuster, ie filibuster, ed) in order to vote on pending electoral rights laws ".

    The filibuster "has no basis in the Constitution", he argues, stressing that historically it has been a tool used largely by southern senators to prevent the passing of civil rights laws and uphold the Jim Crow laws, which legalized racial segregation.

   "In recent years, the filibuster has become a habitual way for the minority in the Senate to block major progress on issues advocated by the majority of voters. But we cannot allow it to be used to block efforts to protect our democracy," he writes.

    Meanwhile, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate Mitch McConnell has severely attacked Biden for his appeal in Georgia to modify the filibuster, accusing him of dividing the country.

"Do we have an incumbent president calling for civil war, shouting totalitarianism, and calling American millions his internal enemies?" He asked rhetorically.

   The president, he added, "poured a giant can of gasoline on the fire".

(HANDLE).