Trump Gives Oxygen to SAVE America Act in SOTU

After President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, congressional Republicans have a clear homework assignment from the White House—to pass the SAVE America Act, requiring photo identification and proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections.

Now, Republicans are trying to figure out whether this legislative push will be an exercise in lawmaking, or just messaging.

“I’m asking you to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal immigrants and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections,” Trump told Congress Tuesday in an attempt to create momentum for the act’s passage through the Senate, where it has not yet received a vote.

“Congress should unite and enact this commonsense, country-saving legislation right now and it should be before anything else happens.”

The House recently passed the bill. Democrats in the House and Senate have generally opposed the bill, arguing citizenship and photo identification requirements suppress the vote and disadvantage minorities.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday on Fox News that he would bring the bill to a vote, but that his current priority was ending the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

“We’ll put the Democrats on the record,” Thune said. “We will get a vote on it. And we are right now in the middle of a government shutdown so we’ve got to try and get the government opened up first, but in due time we will… have a vote on it.”

On Wednesday morning, Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., identified Trump’s advocacy of the bill as a main takeaway from the State of the Union address.

“He said, first and foremost, the SAVE Act’s got to get passed and he’s one hundred percent right,” Moore told The Daily Signal.

But many House Republicans are calling on their Senate Republican counterparts to not just vainly seek the 60 Democrat votes typically required to end debate on legislation, but to force a “talking filibuster.”

The theory, expounded by figures such as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is that Republicans could enforce rule 19 of the standing rules of the Senate, under which senators are given a limit of two speeches on each “question” in a legislative day.

Proponents say Republicans could refuse to adjourn, thereby forcing Democrats to exhaust all of their allotted speeches to delay the bill, eventually bringing the SAVE America Act to a pass-fail, simple majority vote.

But there is no Republican consensus about the approach yet.

Thune told Politico after the address, “Our conference is definitely not united on the talking filibuster, and it will take 50 [Republicans] because you’ve got to defeat all the Dem amendments.”

At a Wednesday press conference, Thune again did not commit to the talking filibuster approach. He argued it would take much floor time and would require party unity among Republicans, since Democrats could try to drag out the process by proposing numerous amendments.

“We’ll see what the Senate does,” Moore told The Daily Signal, “if they actually exercise procedures which are within their own rules for a talking filibuster, or if it’s just a throwaway where … they hold some cloture vote without actually going through with the talking filibuster.”

Shortly before Trump’s address, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Daily Signal he supports using the maneuver to force a vote on the bill, but is not sure it will work.

“I was with [Senators] Mike Lee [of Utah] and Rick Scott [of Florida] at the Oval Office when we were discussing with the president. I’m supportive of it. I’m not going to overpromise what we may not be able to deliver.”

Johnson said he believed passing the SAVE America Act after a talking filibuster might require changes to precedent in order to prevent Democrats from dragging out floor time by bringing forward “an infinite number of amendments.”

“It’s far more complex, far more uncertain than some people may be leading the public to believe,” Johnson told The Daily Signal.

“If senators can go down there and offer an amendment and that’s not counted as a speech, now all of a sudden you have an infinite number of amendments that can be offered, and you’ll never bring debate to a close,” Johnson told The Daily Signal.

Johnson nevertheless called for putting Democrats on the spot on whether or not they support the bill.

“Nobody knows the outcome of this thing, but I think, at a minimum, Republicans ought to make Democrats defend why they are opposed to what approximately 80% of Americans support … some basic controls in terms of ID, citizenship, so that their legitimate vote isn’t canceled out by a fraudulent one,” he said.

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