When all 50 Republican Senators and conservative Democratic Sens Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona voted against changing the filibuster to advance the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that it put an additional burden on states to protect the right to vote.
“The fact that one component of the federal government, the US Senate, is clearly abdicating that role, that constitutional role in this critical moment is disappointing to all those who believe in democracy,” Ms Benson told The Independent in an interview last month. “That said, given where we are in this moment, the action or failure to act in the US Senate also underscores the reality that the path to protecting and defending democracy will run through the states as opposed to the federal government.”
