Voting rights groups worry Biden's Ga. speech comes too late

 
 President Joe Biden in recent days has singled out the protection of voting rights in the U.S. as a top priority for action, and he's heading to Georgia with the vice president to help cement that point. But some civil rights activists, uninterested in another speech, don't want to hear it.

Biden on Tuesday will pay tribute to civil rights battles past - visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once held forth from the pulpit, and placing a wreath at the crypt of King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. His speech isn't expected to contain any announcement of new executive action. Instead, aides say, he'll use the presidential megaphone to speak out about voting rights and concerns about American democracy. "The president will forcefully advocate for protecting the most bedrock American right, the right to vote and have your voice counted in a free and fair and secure election that is not tainted by partisan manipulation," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. It's not enough for some voting rights advocates, who are boycotting the speech and instead spending the day working. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams also is skipping the event; aides said she had a conflict but didn't explain further. "We're beyond speeches. At this point, what we need, what we are demanding, is federal legislation," said LaTosha Brown of Black Votes Matter. And it can't happen soon enough, she said. Activist groups said they'd prefer that Biden stay in Washington to work on breaking the logjam on voting rights legislation in Congress.

So far Democrats have been unable to agree among themselves over potential changes to the Senate filibuster rules to allow action on voting rights, despite months of private negotiations.

-- AP, Washington