“The issue of voting rights will be a momentous test of Democrats’ willingness to keep the filibuster, as Republican-led state legislatures around the country, including Georgia, move to pass a wave of restrictive election laws that experts say will disproportionately hinder Democrats’ access to the ballot. ‘Voting rights is preservative of all other rights. It’s not just one legislative issue alongside others. It is the very basis upon which we get sent here to argue the case for the American people,’ said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., whose January win in the historically red state put Democrats in the majority. ‘It is urgent. And therefore I think all options have to be on the table, in terms of Senate rules'” reports Sahil Kapur of NBC News.
CNN and The Atlantic contributor Ron Brownstein chimed in: “I think there’s broad consensus [that] a GOP filibuster versus the Voting Rights Act would provide the strongest ground for curtailing the filibuster – but some wonder if Mitch McConnell, for that reason, will chose not to deploy it there – instead counting on John Roberts to kill it again. On the other hand, it’s inconceivable McConnell and GOP won’t filibuster the Senate equivalent of HR1, so that could be where the conflict crystallizes – after early skirmishes on guns, police reform, LGBT equality, maybe minimum wage, Dreamers. List could be long.”