The SAVE America Act, which would require voter ID in elections and citizenship verification in voter registration, has a champion in President Donald Trump, who has refused to sign a major housing bill until the Senate advances the election integrity legislation.
Yet the prospects of passage anytime soon seem to be dimming.
The measure, which polling suggests is popular with many Americans, has already made it through the House of Representatives. It has stalled in the Senate for months.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has faced Republican defectors on the bill and resisted a risky procedural maneuver that the bill’s proponents believe could deliver a victory. Those considerations have not appeased the bill’s supporters, who are demanding the step to secure election integrity.
The Senate’s departure for a multi-week recess escalated tensions as Congress mulls supplemental defense spending, the farm bill, and other legislation that could lose momentum if SAVE dominates the agenda.
Some House Republicans are demanding that their Senate colleagues act, criticizing Thune and other GOP colleagues in the upper chamber while threatening to delay legislation in the House.
Related Story
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) had a message for Thune on SAVE: “Put it on the floor and debate it. Make them debate and tell the American people why they don’t have the votes.”
Clyde and other members of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction in the chamber, held a June 25 press conference calling on the Senate to pass the legislation.
Other Republicans have warned of the possible downsides of a full-bore push on the Act ahead of the midterms.
“You’re setting up here for a big disappointment on something that nobody thinks will happen. It will not happen, because it’s easy to filibuster to the end of the year,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told The Epoch Times.
Thune devoted late March to a Senate debate on the bill in a process that drew criticism from Senate Democrats.
The legislation would require 60 votes to overcome the Senate filibuster. Republicans have just a 53-seat majority in the chamber. In addition, four Republican senators—Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)—opposed the legislation in a June vote.
Thune has resisted using what is known as the “standing filibuster” to wear down opposition.
Grothman and some other Republicans fear that the time-consuming process could allow for amendments that Republicans in the Senate would find it challenging to oppose, particularly as reelection fights loom for many.
“Senators do not like to take tough votes on amendments,” the Wisconsinite told The Epoch Times.
“I don’t think Republican leadership has been honest with President Trump on the difficulty [of passing the bill].”
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who is leaving Congress and running for governor of South Dakota, defended Thune’s approach to the bill.
“I’m a little frustrated with people who think that demands will somehow change the underlying reality of how the Senate functions,” he told The Epoch Times.
Other Republicans, such as Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), have doubled down on SAVE and criticism of the majority leader.
“If he can’t get the votes, then he should step aside and let a Republican who is up to the task take over,” Rose said of Thune, adding that he hopes voters in November hold senators accountable for their stances now.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—a conservative rival of Thune in the 2024 election for Senate GOP leadership—told The Epoch Times he sees a path involving the standing filibuster.
Like other advocates, he noted that a similar maneuver led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“We should try everything,” he said when asked whether he sees alternative measures for passing voter ID, proof of voter registration, or other SAVE elements, although he did not provide any specifics.
One alternative for advancing at least parts of SAVE could come through budget reconciliation.
The Senate parliamentarian, a referee on the upper chamber’s complex and hotly debated rules, found that SAVE does not meet the criteria to make it into a reconciliation bill.
Mike Johnson touted another possibility on June 24.
“We believe that if you create a grant program that ties it to reconciling the budget and you allow blue states, if they come to their senses and they want to avail themselves to election integrity proposals and ideas and policies, they can draw down from a federal fund and use those funds,” he said.
Incorporating a SAVE-like grant program into a budget reconciliation bill would enable Republicans to advance their priorities with a simple majority in the Senate.
The proposal resembles one from Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.), responsible for the SAVE America Through Real ID Act.
A Fedorchak staffer told The Epoch Times by email that “leadership is extremely supportive of this effort” and that “the White House is also aware and [appreciative] of the effort.”
Not all SAVE advocates are on board with the strategy.
In the June 25 House Freedom Caucus press conference, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said that blue states would shy away from participating in a voluntary grant program.
“You have got to connect it to existing funds if that is the route you’re going to go,” she said.
There could be even more fundamental difficulties with the approach.
Although Mike Johnson and some other Republicans have vowed that another reconciliation bill will move forward, other key players beg to differ.
Earlier in June, Collins and McConnell agreed that the likelihood that another such package would reach the finish line was low.
READ MORE HERE
—Nathan Worcester
BOOKMARKS
Both the United States and Iran will stand down in the ongoing conflict affecting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, The Epoch Times’ Aldgra Fredly reported. “Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” a U.S. official said. The shipping corridor is critical for international energy shipping, which has been deeply reduced by hostilities between the United States and Iran.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is sending a housing affordability bill to Trump on Monday and that “it will become law,” just days after the president canceled a ceremony to sign it. The Epoch Times’ Tom Gantert reported that Johnson described the bill as a “Republican priority,” with Johnson noting that the bill would reduce housing costs and cut regulations.
France’s public health agency reported about 1,000 excess deaths between June 24 and June 27 amid an intense heat wave in the country, during which temperatures peaked at 111.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The Epoch Times’ Tom Gantert reported that officials consider these figures preliminary, with the death toll expected to increase as additional deaths from hospitals, residential care facilities, and private homes are identified and reported.
