(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden cast doubt on whether long-shot voting rights legislation can pass Congress but said he’d continue fighting to win approval as long as he’s in the White House.
“I hope we get this done,” Biden told reporters after meeting with Senate Democrats on Thursday behind closed doors. “The honest-to-God answer is: I don’t know if we get this done.”
Biden said if the measure fails in the Senate, he’ll try again.
“As long as I have a breath in me, as long as I’m in the White House, as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting” for legislation to counter measures in Republican-led states that limit voting rights, he said.
His comments came after Democrat Kyrsten Sinema said Thursday she opposes a Biden-backed effort to change Senate rules to win approval of the legislation, depriving the president of key support in a chamber divided 50-50. Republicans oppose the voting rights measures.
Just before Biden arrived at the Capitol to huddle with all 50 Senate Democrats, the Arizona senator said on the Senate floor that the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance, protects the country “from wild reversals on federal policy” when control of Congress changes hands.
“While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” Sinema said. “The debate over the 60-vote threshold shines a light on our broader challenges.”
At issue is the fate of two Democrat-drafted voting rights measures that were combined into a single bill passed by the House earlier Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set up the legislation as a test of the Senate rules that give the minority party broad power over what bills can get a vote.
The stakes for Biden and congressional Democrats are high, with civil rights groups and other progressives increasingly restive over the legislation, which has been blocked by Republicans in the Senate using the chamber’s filibuster rule.
Biden, who progressives have slammed for not doing enough on the issue, has sought to persuade Sinema and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to go along with altering the filibuster to get the legislation passed.
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