The SAVE America Act is President Trump’s number one legislative priority this year, and Senate Republicans are dangerously close to killing it.
In a president’s second term, it is extremely common for the chief executive to focus on foreign affairs, as we have seen with Trump’s protective tariffs and military action against regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Cuba.
In domestic policy, Trump has basically made one request of Capitol Hill: the SAVE America Act, his election integrity bill.
In the first year of his second term, Trump’s top priority was the One Big Beautiful Bill, an all-encompassing collection of budget, tax, and policy priorities that most importantly preserved—and in some cases expanded—the tax cuts in his 2017 tax bill.
Then Majority Leader John R. Thune (R.-S.D.) proposed to the president that he pursue two bills. The first would include immigration and border security funding, along with a tax and regulatory package to support the oil industry. Thune told Trump the second bill would include all of his tax cuts and other priorities.
Trump basically told Thune: I have seen this movie already. I know how it ends.
During the president’s first administration, it was routine for Republican leaders and their attendant consultants, lobbyists, and former staffers to get what they wanted, while Trump was left waiting. In the end, Trump forced Thune to accept and pass the OBBB so that everyone would be taken care of in one shot.
Now comes the SAVE America Act. Its main provision is to require voter ID and for the cleaning of voter rolls through the states to remove illegal aliens, voters who have moved to other states, and the dead. The bill would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
The bill passed the House narrowly, 218-213, with Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar the only Democrat to cross the aisle for passage. In the Senate, two votes are required. The first vote is on whether to end debate.
Thune has already said he does not have the 60 votes needed to end debate. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, and Vice President J.D. Vance can only vote in the case of a tie. Of course, Thune could eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end debate. It is a Senate rule; it is not in the Constitution.
Before 1917 there was no formal way to end debate. When senators kept talking on the Senate floor to block President Woodrow Wilson’s bill to arm Merchant Marine ships, Senate leaders created a two-thirds vote requirement to end the filibuster, or endless debate, and invoke cloture.
In 1975 Senate Democrats lowered the requirement to 60 votes so they could overcome Republican opposition to their programs. In 2013 Senate Democrats again changed the rules so that only a simple majority was needed to end debate on presidential appointments, except for Supreme Court nominees.
In 2017 Senate Republicans removed that exception so they could confirm Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, so both hands are dirty.
Thune and his GOP colleagues know Senate rules were not brought down the mountainside by Moses. They know election integrity is what both Trump and the MAGA base want. The question is: What will they do about it?