In his first opinion piece since he left office five years ago, former President Barack Obama on Thursday strongly encouraged Democratic lawmakers in the Senate to make changes to the filibuster rule so that the upper chamber can pass stalled voting rights legislation.
The legislation, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, passed the House last summer but has failed to pass in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim one-vote majority.
President Joe Biden has also called for changes to the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass a piece of legislation.
In his op-ed published in USA Today, Obama says he fully supports Biden’s call to modify Senate rules “to make sure pending voting rights legislation gets called for a vote.”
Obama said American democracy is not a given, and isn’t self-executing. It must be nurtured, he said, by citizens.
The 44th president lauded Lewis’ life work and noted that the Senate filibuster has no place in the U.S. Constitution. He added that the filibuster has been used only sparingly throughout history, mostly by southern senators decades ago to block civil rights legislation.
People for the American Way, League of Women Voters, Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, Black Voters Matter, DC Vote, Greenpeace and other groups protest in front of the White House to encourage nationwide voter rights legislation, in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 2021. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI
“In recent years, the filibuster became a routine way for the Senate minority to to block important progress on issues supported by the majority of voters,” he wrote. “But we can’t allow it to be used to block efforts to protect our democracy.”
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Obama said in his op-ed that lawmakers in 49 states have introduced more than 400 bills “designed to suppress votes.” He also said Republicans are using aggressive gerrymandering to tilt the playing field in their favor — and states are trying to assert power over core election processes, including the ability to certify election results.
Read the full article written by Barack Obama here.
Obama called on the Senate to “do the right thing” at a time when America’s democracy is being tested.
“These partisan attempts at voter nullification are unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times, and they represent a profound threat to the basic democratic principle that all votes should be counted fairly and objectively,” he wrote.
“The good news is that the majority of American voters are resistant to this slow unraveling of basic democratic institutions and electoral mechanisms. But their elected representatives have a sacred obligation to push back as well – and now is the time to do it.”
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The face of 100% pure evil.
Just goes to show you that Obama was as unfit to be a Senator as he was to be President. Obama was to Alinsky, what Biden is to Obama, what Kamala is to Joe. It’s called the Democrat Communist Daisy Chain of command, where if there is not a crisis they will never let go to waste, they use what power they have to create one, then lay waste to the country. Any corrupt bills now shoved down the American throats due to a killed filibuster will only come back to haunt them when the Conservative creative minds take over and not only reverse their corrupted legislating but replace it with something that actually works and makes America better,,,that is until the Democrats can steal back the Senate. It’s called the Democrat Washington See-saw governance where first you see the corruption, then your rights and head gets sawed off when the other team gets back into power for a perpetual American division and weakening of the American cloth of many colors, now turned to Democrat totalitarian tattered and torn.
Barack H. Obama once said of Joe Biden that, “. Never Underestimate Joe Biden’s ability To F. Things Up.” But Joe Biden has had some help F…..ing things up as president Joe Biden is Just a Puppet. Of the Likes of Barack H. Obama, George Soros , Chuck Schumber , Burnie Sanders, And all the Socialist democrat eliteof the democrat Party, Barack H. Obama instructs Joe Biden just what he should do and say in large part. Barack H. Obama is like a gift which keeps on Giving, “we will never get rid of Barack H. Obama’s controlling Influence in party politics.
He is a <strong>traitor to the USA , lock him up .
Better yet, HANG, draw and quarter him, RIGHT ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER traitors in the entire DNC!
Barack H. Obama’s early Childhood was wirh the Communist party, his family were Conmunists and so Barack H. Obama was also A Communist, And was Never For America .
Happy to say that Sinema reiterated her opposition to getting rid of the filibuster this morning and Manchin did the same earlier in the week.
Unless Obama has some greater pull on them it looks like we will keep the filibuster.
Unlike the stolen election Joe claimed was in the bag, his filibuster bag has holes in it. Only two are showing but if other Democrat Senators were honest, and voted their consciences instead of their blackmailing, many more would be revealed. Truth, Honesty and the American Way become so inconvenient when socialist oppressors are on the move, then hit the wall of full throated patriotism.
Many who are against it, are too SCARED imo, to say so..
Had to let go of Joe’s strings long enough to pull a few of his own. A swamp rat of the lowest sort.
I pray to God that our victory in the mid-terms is so overwhelming that their lives will be a living hell for a long, long time.
I have a left and a right buster that I would like to plant right up side his empty skull.
The only strings left for Joe to pull is the Devilish embilical chord he is attached to when he sold his soul for his measly 10 % and a hair snift. Being President is just the final icing on the cake of his Faustian soul selling deal with Beelzebub. Those who fail to look out for our filibuster, in life, are doomed when they kick the old age bucket to have to deal with the Ghostbusters after death, with death removing his ability to further slime his country or anyone else.
Barack H. Pbama Doesn’t like the ” Filibuster now Because the ability to use the ” Fillibuster , ” Puts the power, in others hands and Barack H. Obama the 44Th. Socialist,/ Communist, democrat president, wants to , As democrat, Joe Biden ,has said, ” wants to put You All back in Chains , ” The American Citizens and Barack H. Obama fears the ability Of others to cancel and defeat him and his fellow Communists.
Remembering the past when PinocchiObama was president and the corrupt F. Joe Biden was VP. Each day that passes as Obama fails to uphold the law, he essentially makes a public declaration that his purpose is not to “faithfully execute” but to exploit his position of power for the furtherance of his own interests.. Rather than serving the public that elected him, he reveals a total contempt for them.
Now we have F. Joe Biden as president and PinocchiObama as his master again and the contempt for the U.S. citizens has not changed.
IF anything, it’s gotten MORE brazen.
Now That democrat, ” career Politican, Joe Biden is The President of The United States he is Saying And Doing Whatever Obama, Naccy Pelosi Chuch Schumber, and the Elite of the party tells him to say on his Tela- Prompter, What ever he’s instructed to say… Joe Biden, Puppet.
Of course he wants to end the filibuster, that way all his Socialist or Nazi policies can be pushes through without opposition ( I’m talking about Obama ) in a interview he did before the 2020 Election he layed out how he would get a 3rd term and have a ” Puppet ” as his voice. If they end the filibuster the Democratic party will have complete control, and may push through more Country killing policies
AND You can bet, IF THEY GET THEIR WAY, we will NEVER EVER have another chance to vote them out.. WE WILL HAVE TO GO TO WAR to do it.
Remember this from yahoo 9-28-2021; Pelosi called on Congress to “keep government open” and to work to “address the full Obama agenda of building back better.” Anyone with a modicum of intelligence has realized by now that it is not Biden running this country, he is the puppet.
the former head muslim in charge just can not wait for total submission of america.
What republicans should do is to go years past and put on notice every democrat who in past year voted or spoke against doing away with the filibuster and the reasons they gave then. Place those comments as a matter of record since it was openly said by democrats before
THEIR voters won’t care. NOR will the complicit media.
Oboob failed to overthrow our constitutional government so now he’s trying to overthrow the U.S. Senate.
Obama who???
Barack said of Himself When Elected by a Hopeful Electorite , ” I Serve as a Blank Slate upon People Write their Different Wishes To Paraphrase What Obama once Said About Himself Barack H. Obama turned out to already have An Communist Agenda And So the people Who Pinned their Hopes on Obama Were Completely Made Fools Of .,..