“We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War”

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President Biden is facing increasing pressure from black civil rights leaders to take an aggressive stance on Congress to get rid of the filibuster and pass federal laws that would protect voters as the president prepares for a key suffrage speech on Tuesday.

Black leaders say Biden has not acted fast enough on the franchise as a growing number of states pass laws restricting access to voting. His Philadelphia address comes less than a week after the president met with the leaders of several civil rights organizations in the White House.

The group called for Biden to go to communities and talk about what he’s doing to protect voting rights, said Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, who attended the White House meeting.

The leaders also urged the Biden administration to do more to get Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Black voters, Campbell said, put Biden in office with the expectation that he would rise up against the GOP’s efforts to suppress their votes.

“We believe this is a state of emergency,” said Campbell. “Because we don’t have a strong suffrage law to push some of it back, we look for regression … and with African Americans we’ve always had to have federal intervention.”

According to the White House, Biden’s speech on Tuesday will include “comments on measures to protect sacred constitutional suffrage”.

Passing the electoral law was an uphill battle for the Democrats over filibuster, which means their slim Senate majority is insufficient to overcome GOP opposition. Moderate Democrats have opposed major changes to the rules, which makes the future of new electoral laws unclear. Biden has also stopped helping get rid of the filibuster but has expressed his openness to making the practice difficult to carry out.

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said there was no route to voting that didn’t require changing or terminating the filibuster.

Biden has the power to influence the legislature and it would be an “epic failure” if the president did not take a stand against the filibuster in his speech.

“The president’s hands are never tied,” said Albright.

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