DNC Chair Harrison: I Want Manchin, Sinema ‘to Understand’ ‘Pain’ Voting Laws Cause to Generation That Went Through Jim Crow Before

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Stephanie Ruhle Reports,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison reacted to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) opposition to the For the People Act by referencing his grandparents growing up in the Jim Crow South and worrying that some state voting laws will be a reversion to that and then stating “you would think that Democrats and Republicans and independents would all stand up and say we are not going back.” And “I want Joe Manchin, I want Kyrsten Sinema, I want all of our Democrats and the Republicans to understand the pain that this is bringing back up to a generation that had to go through this stuff before.”

Harrison said, “I’m disappointed in Sen. Manchin’s decision. I think, previously, he had supported the For the People Act, and I guess he changed. I don’t know why. But we need to focus on voting rights here. I want all of our senators, Democrats and Republicans, to look at what is happening in the states. The other day my grandma told me she was watching — she grew up in the Jim Crow South here, in South Carolina, where she couldn’t always vote. My grandfather couldn’t always vote. And she was just watching news, talking about the bill in Texas, and she said to me, she said, Jaime, are they going to try to go back to the way that it used to be? That is heartbreaking, Stephanie. I can’t bring up my two sons in a country that is going to go back to where we were at one time before. And so, you would think that Democrats and Republicans and independents would all stand up and say we are not going back. And so, I want Joe Manchin, I want Kyrsten Sinema, I want all of our Democrats and the Republicans to understand the pain that this is bringing back up to a generation that had to go through this stuff before. That is not who we are as a nation. We need to move forward and not move back.”

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