Kanishka and Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Dozens U.S. Democratic legislators with the Congressional Black Caucus have urged Justice Department to intensify legal efforts to safeguard voting rights in the country. They condemned what they call “antidemocratic” Republican attempts to limit voter access to voters of color.

In a Monday letter, the 44 House Members wrote that they were condemning the “unabashedly racist” and “partisan attacks on the nation’s democratic values. They also asked for an immediate retraction.

The letter was signed among others by Joyce Beatty (Congressional Black Caucus Chair), and James Clyburn, Ayanna Presley, Representatives Ilhan Olmar, Barbara Lee and James Clyburn.

The letter stated that they would enforce any law applicable to make sure all citizens have the right to vote. No lawsuit can be too minor when it concerns citizens’ voting rights.

Two legislative losses were suffered by President Joe Biden’s congressional Democrats last month as they tried to tighten voting rights protections ahead of the November midterm elections, which will decide control over Congress in 2023.

The Democrats had stopped the Senate Republicans from moving the Voting Rights legislation towards passage. The filibuster rule, which is a decades-old method of stopping legislation from passing was used by the Senate Republicans to block it. It requires cooperation from at least 60 senators in order to preserve bills. The Senate is currently split 50-50.

Democrats accuse Republicans of using the majority of their state legislatures to design electoral maps that reduce the power and influence of Black and other racial minorities voters, while increasing the power and influence of white voters.

There have been dozens of lawsuits filed across the country against congressional lines that were drawn in the once-a-decade cycle.

(This article corrects the amount of legislators that signed the letter, which was originally 41.