Top House Democrat calls out GOP refusal to move voting legislation forward: 'It's a cult right now'

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N. Y., called out 16 GOP senators for refusing to support voting rights legislation they once backed and suggested their opposition is a result of their allegiance to their "cult leader," former President Donald Trump.

Jeffries, the House Democratic Caucus chair, said the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has been historically bipartisan dating back to the era of President Richard Nixon, and he lamented Republicans in the Senate who have refused to support voting legislation that Democrats are pushing to pass this week.

"What happened to the modern day Republican Party?," Jeffries said at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday. "Was it the election that took place in 2008? Did that disturb you? Did that throw you off?"

"What happened to the modern day Republican Party that you abandon your own principles?," Jeffries continued. "Principles that Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush espouse and that 16 of you voted to authorize. The modern day Republican Party – it's a cult right now. Is it because the cult leader has told you to oppose voting rights?"

Trump has blasted the voting rights legislation as a "scam" and an effort by Democrats to "make it virtually impossible for Republicans to win elections."

Voting rights legislation has been reauthorized four times since the original passage in 1965. Most recently, in 2006, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act passed t... (Read more)

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