Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday dashed a push from President Donald Trump and his allies to amend the Senate filibuster rule to speed passing controversial voter-identification legislation.
The SAVE America Act, which was introduced in January, would require voters to prove their citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and would require certain forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. The measure is slated for a vote in the House this week but faces an uphill climb in the Senate where Democrats have vowed to use the filibuster to block the legislation, which they say could disenfranchise millions of Americans. Because of the filibuster rule, bills require 60 votes to advance in the Senate.
Proponents of the voter-ID legislation are calling for changes to the chamber’s rules.
“There aren’t anywhere close to the votes, not even close, to nuking the filibuster,” Thune said at a press conference following a meeting of Senate Republicans on Tuesday. “So that idea is something, although it continues to be put out there. … That doesn’t have a future.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who is leading the push for the bill in the Senate, has called to abolish the so-called “zombie filibuster” and bring back an older form of the rule that requires objecting members to be physically on the floor and talking to delay legislation.
“Remember, the talking filibuster is best understood as the filibuster. Historically, senators have been required to speak in order to filibuster. You shouldn’t be able to have the benefits of the filibuster without doing the work of the filibuster, and that means speaking,” Lee said in a video posted to X on Tuesday.
The “talking” filibuster — made famous by the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — has not been regularly practiced since a Senate rule change in the 1970s, and even some supporters of the legislation have reservations about a reversion back to the old ways.
“I think getting rid of the filibuster would lead to more acrimony, more rapid shifts from right to left, and I think wouldn’t be good for the country,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who said he supports the voter-ID bill, told reporters on Tuesday. “I think the default position is liberty and that most legislation takes your liberty. And so I’m not a big fan of making it easier to pass legislation.”
Filibuster reform aside, the voter-ID proposal is controversial and faces an uncertain fate in both chambers as Trump last week called for the federal government to take control of elections from states.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a GOP centrist, announced on X on Tuesday that she does not support the legislation.
“Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the ‘times, places, and manner’ of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska,” Murkowski said.
A similar version of the bill — which was introduced by Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, last year but did not include a voter-ID requirements at the polls — advanced out of the House in April with four Democrats joining their Republican colleagues in support.
One of those Democrats, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, said Monday that this iteration of the bill was “not even close to the same” as the one he previously supported.
“One requires that you prove your citizenship to register to vote. The other one is like, IDs at the ballot box. It’s not an insignificant difference,” Golden said. “Sounds like zero shot of going anywhere in the Senate… They’re just messaging to themselves.”
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