President Biden plans to throw his weight behind congressional Democrats’ push to pass long-stalled elections bills, even if it requires changing Senate rules, in a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday designed to build support for the imperiled legislation with votes just days away.
While House and Senate Democrats support the proposals, the bills need 60 votes to advance in the 50-50 Senate. Both are expected to fall well short of that mark due to opposition from GOP lawmakers, prompting a parallel effort by Democrats to change the filibuster procedure to ease their passage. But two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have resisted such an approach, leaving any progress uncertain.
In his speech Tuesday, Mr. Biden will argue Democrats’ case that new federal laws are needed to counter recent state measures, which party lawmakers paint as a threat to access to the polls, particularly for minority voters. Republicans characterize the proposals as federal overreach and say Democrats are giving a distorted picture of states’ attempts to bolster election integrity.
Mr. Biden will say that the votes “will mark a turning point in this nation,” according to excerpts released by the White House. “Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know where I stand,” Mr. Biden’s speech reads. “And so the question is where will the institution of [the] United States Senate stand?”
How should...
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