Toobin: Voting Rights Expansion ‘Life or Death for the Democracy’ — This Is ‘an Existential Crisis for United States’

Fresh off his several-month hiatus for being caught in an inappropriate situation during a Zoom call with his former New Yorker staff members, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is sounding the alarm on voting rights expansion.

Tuesday, the Senate failed to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the debate on the so-called “For the People Act,” which would have federalized America’s electoral system.

Toobin argued Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day” that expanding voting rights “is life or death for the democracy.” He described the voting rights bill as “an existential crisis for the United States.”

“There are two big issues before Congress right now. There’s infrastructure, and there’s voting rights,” Toobin outlined. “Infrastructure is sort of the classic stuff of politics. How much do you spend on roads and bridges, how do you pay for it, and that should be the stuff of compromise. The voting rights is very different. This is life or death for the democracy. This is about whether the people are going to control their government, or the government is going to decide how the democracy works or doesn’t work. And I just think one of them is an existential crisis for the United States, and the other seems like it’s going to be worked out.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent