Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the Republican Party is attempting to stop “Black people, Chicanos, Asian-American people from voting.”
Hirono said, “What I’m seeing are voter suppression bills being enacted by state legislatures across the country, so that is a direct threat to our democracy. Voter suppression bills by the hundreds. So you have a state like Georgia where they’re trying to take over the election board. They already have, where you can’t give water or food to people standing in line for hours, where you have one voter who can challenge another voter, and they’re getting people to volunteer to do that. That is what’s going on across the country. We need to take action to support voter protection laws.”
She continued, “Here’s what I’d like to see happen at this point. I’m not even talking about eliminating the filibuster, which I support. I would support bringing back, really, the talking filibuster, which is something that Joe Manchin supported earlier. So if you’re going to be that one person to halt everything, you should get on the floor of the Senate and hold that floor for however many hours, you can so that the American people will know who is the person that’s stopping, in my view, voter protection legislation.”
She added, “It’s totally concerning that President Trump and all his enablers continue to push forward the big lie that this election was stolen and therefore they need to support the passage of all of these voter suppression bills that will really stop minority people, the Black people, Chicanos, Asian-American people from voting. That’s where they’re going because this is their effort to retain power.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN