Biden & Harris to visit GA while Bulldogs fans celebrate natty win

The President and Vice President are set to discuss voting rights

Biden and Harris

Could it be a case of bad timing?

With less than one week until Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to visit Georgia to deliver speeches on voting rights legislation.

The pair will visit several civil rights landmarks across the city, including the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and the tombs of Dr. and Coretta Scott King.

Reports say that the President is expected to endorse a change to Senate rules that will allow the upper chamber to pass the legislation with a simple majority rather than the usual 60-vote requirement.

But some civil rights leaders and voting rights groups have been dreading the President’s visit ever since it was announced last week, with some even saying that they plan to boycott Tuesday’s events. Some of them say that White House had not been coordinating with them about the visit, while other say that the President should be in Washington pushing the stalled legislation through the Senate.

But the President is set to be joined by several high-profile Democrats, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock (Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer).

The timing of course couldn’t be worse for Georgia Bulldogs fans, who are still celebrating their 33-18 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide in Monday night’s College Football Championship. The victory ended a 41-year national championship drought for the University of Georgia, and it also marked the first Bulldogs win over the Crimson Tide since 2007.

Several Georgia leaders were in Indianapolis for the game, including Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker David Ralston, who are both UGA graduates themselves. Even Georgia Tech graduates Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens hopped on the Bulldogs bandwagon.

Today’s presidential visit is unlikely to get much attention in Bulldogs Nation. But it will mark a turning point for the White House as the President’s focus shifts from his economic agenda to voting rights legislation.

FUN FACT: Georgia’s victory marks the first time since 2004 that the national champion comes from a state that President Biden carried in 2020.