| Category: Regional: United States of America |
After the U.S. Senate was unable to push through voting legislation Wednesday night, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is receiving his share of criticism for remarks he made about African American voters.
McConnell, one of Kentucky's U.S. senators and the minority leader in the Senate, has been trending on social media since the comment he made Wednesday night after Democrats were unable to move the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to the Senate floor. Democrats in the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill over the Republican filibuster.
And while Democrats made their own headlines about not being able to change Senate rules to get the voting legislation passed, many are denouncing McConnell for his words that suggested African Americans are not Americans.
"Well, the concern is misplaced. Because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans," McConnell said.
U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, a former Kentucky lawmaker who is looking to unseat Republican Rand Paul, shared the video on Twitter with a direct criticism of McConnell. The video on his post was viewed more than 1 million times.
"I need you to understand that this is who Mitch McConnell is," Booker said on Twitter.
The tweet included this: "Being Black doesn't make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks."
Others on social have also come out against McConnell for his comment. That includes Mary Trump, the daughter of Fred Trump and former President Donald Trump's niece. Various other figures and publications have also shared the video.
WLKY reached out to McConnell for a statement, but did not hear back.
The comment from McConnell and the failure to pass the legislation Wednesday comes as voting rights advocates have been warning that Republican-led states nationwide are passing laws making it more difficult for Black Americans and others to vote by consolidating polling locations, requiring certain types of identification and ordering other changes.
In Texas, it's now a crime for election workers to send absentee ballot applications to voters who didn't request them. In Georgia, most voters who show up at the wrong polling places on Election Day will be turned away — instead of permitted to cast provisional ballots.
And in Florida, a new law makes it harder for voters to continue receiving ballots by mail and limits the availability of drop boxes.
The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act would have made Election Day a national holiday, ensure access to early voting and mail-in ballots — which have become especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic — and enable the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes. It has passed the House.
The chief goal, supporters say: Make it easier for all Americans — regardless of which states they live in — to vote.
"I am profoundly disappointed that the Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy. I am disappointed — but I am not deterred," President Joe Biden said in a tweet minutes after the vote.
~ Via WLKY |
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