Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. We've made it to Wednesday. It's January 12th. I'm Nailibudu.

Here's what we're watching today. Tracking COVID through wastewater. Plus, China says it's loosening

its grip on the internet at the Winter Olympics. But first, today's one big thing. President

Biden's urgent push for voting rights. I know right, Stan. I will not yield. I will not fledge. I

will defend the right to vote. Our democracy gets all enemies foreign and yes domestic.

The question is where will the institution of the United States Senate stand?

That's President Biden yesterday, making a forceful call for voting rights protections to

pass Congress and for a change to Senate rules to make it possible. Axios is managing it for

politics. Margaret Talib is here with what you need to know. He, Margaret, first of all, we probably

need to start with the context. What is Biden actually pushing for and where does this legislation

stand? After the 2020 election, what we saw in state after state that was a Republican majority

were actually efforts to restrict voting rights after we saw an election with historic turnout levels.

And so what the Democrats have been talking about ever since then is saying there has to be some

kind of a national baseline. The answer to more people than ever voting shouldn't be to make it

harder to vote. So there's two key bills. One comes out of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,

of course, named for the famous civil rights leader and congressman. That one really focuses on the

Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court and recent years has struck down some key provisions

of that, including pre-clearance by the Justice Department when states want to change voting laws.

The other is a broad omnibus compromise bill actually called the Freedom of Voting Act.

That basically is the national standard. It would make all 50 states have to offer early voting.

It would have made election day, a holiday, enhanced vote by mail protections. Same day voter

registration, allowing some online voting, protecting against voter purges. That basically is the

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