President Joe Biden weighed in on the election reform law signed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA), likening the “unAmerican” legislation to “Jim Crow laws.”
“Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an unAmerican law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said in a statement. “This is Jim Crow in the 21st century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.”
The president took the opportunity to encourage Congress to pass the "For the People Act," which would mandate a sweeping, federal takeover of elections. The legislation, deemed unconstitutional by many Republicans, passed the House along party lines but is unlikely to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.
NEW: In a statement, President Biden described Georgia’s new voting law as "Jim Crow in the 21st century."
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) March 26, 2021
He says state Republicans “rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote” and calls the law a “blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience.”
The law signed by Kemp tightens restrictions on mail-in voting and ramps up voter identification requirements, in order to prevent fraud. Democrats argue that the bill bolsters “voter suppression” and will prevent people of color from having voting accessibility. The intent of the legislation is to make voting easier and cheating more difficult.