It’s time to choose, Joe Biden tells Republicans in fiery voting rights speech

TIL Desk/World/Atlanta/ US President Joe Biden on Tuesday made a full-throated appeal for voting rights legislation stalled in Congress and said Democratic lawmakers should make a major change in Senate rules to override Republican opposition.

In a speech designed to breathe life into the fight to pass federal voting laws and convince skeptical Democratic activists of his commitment, Biden called Republicans cowardly and he also committed to changing the US Senate’s “filibuster” rule to pass legislation. Calling it a “battle for the soul of America,” Biden put the voting rights effort on par with the fight against segregation by slain civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Republicans must choose which side of history they want to be on, Biden said, contrasting American civil rights heroes with some of US history’s most notorious white supremacists. “Do you want to be on the side of Martin Luther King or George Wallace?,” Biden asked, referring to the segregationist former Alabama Governor. “Do you want to be on the side of (former congressman) John Lewis or Bull Connor? The side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”