A strong efforts by Democrats to improve voting rights through legislation has been blocked in Senate by the GOP for over months now. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. has vowed he will change the rules of the upper chamber by January 17 if the GOP persists.  article by Barbara Sprunt and Deirdre Walsh is published by NPR. Here is an excerpt;

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has vowed the Senate will forge ahead on voting rights legislation and will vote on changing the rules of the upper chamber by Jan. 17 if the GOP once again blocks the bill.

“We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before,” Schumer wrote in a Dear Colleague letter Monday morning. This message is his strongest to date suggesting that changes to the legislative filibuster are necessary.

“As former Senator Robert Byrd famously said, Senate Rules ‘must be changed to reflect changed circumstances,’ ” he said. “Put more plainly by Senator Byrd, ‘Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.’ “

Read the full article here.