With momentum for action in Washington growing out of what Democrats see as an unwarranted Republican crackdown in the states, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Blunt are taking aim at what they believe are distortions and exaggerations about the Georgia law. Mr. McConnell is eager to point out that fact checkers faulted Mr. Biden for getting aspects of the Georgia law wrong.
“If you look at the actual law, it actually expands voting rights,” said Mr. McConnell, who also noted that Georgians would have more opportunity to vote under the new statute than residents of many other states that are not seeing corporate boycotts.
While there are disagreements about the effect of specific provisions of the voting changes in Georgia and proposals being advanced elsewhere, Democrats and independent election experts say the efforts being undertaken in the name of election integrity are aimed at holding down voting opportunities, particularly for minorities who tend to favor Democrats.
Mr. McConnell disputed that idea.
“People are not being denied the right to vote anywhere in America,” said Mr. McConnell, who noted that presidential turnout last year was the highest since 1900. “Nobody should buy this notion that this is somehow about voter suppression. They are also playing the race card, which shows how desperate they are to shame people into voting for this monstrosity.”
For all his opposition, Mr. McConnell is not ruling out that Democrats could advance the initiative, which would require a rules change to overcome a Republican filibuster and its 60-vote requirement to move forward. Even if it somehow became law, Mr. McConnell indicated that he would be first in line to try to overturn it before a more sympathetic audience.
“Hopefully political speech and the First Amendment will prevail in a more neutral format — in court,” he said. “We’ve fortunately have had good judgment, I think, on the whole by the court system over the years that have kept us restrained from doing the kinds of things they are trying to do.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/us/mitch-mcconnell-voting-rights-bill.html
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