FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 11, 2022

Contact: Jessica Felix Romero| jromero@sojo.net

Sojourners Applauds President Biden’s Call for Senate rules changes to pass Voting Rights Legislation 

Urges Immediate Reform to Protect the Sacred Right to Vote 

Washington D.C. -  Sojourners applauds President Biden’s vocal, forceful support of changing the Senate rules to ensure critical voting rights and pro-democracy legislation can move forward. Sojourners calls on the Senate to heed the urgency expressed by the President in his speech in Atlanta today and act to strengthen our democracy.

“Senators must find the moral courage and choose our democracy over a procedural rule that is currently forestalling progress.  We now need legislative action, not just speeches.  If the Senate can change its rules to raise the debt ceiling, it can and must do so to protect our democracy.   We urge the immediate reform to chamber rules so that the filibuster is no longer an obstacle to swiftly passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 and the Freedom to Vote Act on or before Martin Luther King Day.  The future of our democracy depends on it,” said Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, President of Sojourners. 

Members of Congress are elected by the people and for the people to exercise their responsibility and duty to protect our democracy. Any law that restricts the sacred right to vote and makes it easier to overturn election results is unjust because it denies citizens their agency and voice. Unjust laws assault imago Dei, the core belief that every person is made in God’s divine image. 

Voting rights is not a partisan issue—it is the foundation of our democracy. Sojourners calls on elected officials to exercise moral courage and treat voting rights like the bipartisan imperative and nonpartisan issue it truly is.