End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund President Tiffany Muller released the following statement after Senate Republicans used an outdated Senate procedure to block having an up-and-down vote on the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act and the failure to change the rules to pass the legislation:
“Senate Republicans once again showed their hostility toward the freedom to vote and to have your vote counted. They are dead set on protecting the anti-voter laws that restrict access to the ballot box for millions of Americans, particularly voters in communities of color.
“While most Democrats worked to update Senate rules in order to pass this critically important bill, Senators Manchin and Sinema chose to defend the Washington status quo instead of the voice and vote of every American. History will remember them as standing on the side of restrictive voting laws and politicians who want to overturn the will of the voters.
“Today was a setback, but the fight continues. The American people–Democrats, Republicans and Independents–support national standards to protect every American’s access to voting, a ban on dark money, an end to extreme gerrymandering, and protections to ensure partisan politicians don’t interfere with the will of the voters. The Republican party has decided not only to ignore the will of the American people but to make it their policy to try to win elections by putting up barriers to voting for American citizens and putting in place measures to make it easier to sabotage, subvert and overturn election results. We will hold them accountable.
“The fight to protect the freedom to vote and the fundamental principles of our democracy will not die with this vote in the Senate. We will continue to fight for meaningful federal legislation; we will fight at the state level against voter restrictions; we will fight to end dark money; we will fight to elect true champions of our democracy; we will fight together and we will not relent. We will work with our millions of members, partners, and allies to meet our moral obligation to fight against the coordinated attack to deny millions of Americans their fundamental right to vote.”
###