Biden asks Americans to choose country over party as restrictive Texas voting bill advances

President Joe Biden called a restrictive Texas voting bill edging closer toward passage "wrong and un-American" Saturday as he pressed Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation that has very little chance of passing in the evenly divided Senate.

His plea for Americans to choose country over party and find consensus on bedrock principles of democracy was just the latest reminder of how far apart the two parties now are in the nation's Capital -- and how naïve Biden's campaign promise that he could restore bipartisanship in Washington now appears. At almost the same time that Biden was reminiscing about how the two sides used to be able to work together in the US Senate during an event in Virginia on Friday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort to launch a bipartisan commission to explore the origins of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Biden's hopes of passing legislation to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, reduce the scourge of gun violence, overhaul policing and halt the attack on voting rights all face long odds in the 50-50 Senate.