SAVE America Act supporters irate over bill stalling in U.S. Senate

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(The Center Square) – With Congress in recess until September, SAVE America Act hardliners are chastising Senate Republican leadership for refusing to consider the contentious voter registration reform legislation.

"If Republicans want to be given the majority again...then we need to do what we said we would do: secure America,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted Monday on social media from a clip with Fox News. “That's what the SAVE America Act is about – securing elections."

The SAVE America Act would mandate that Americans display a valid ID to vote in federal elections, require people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and necessitate in-person voter registration for federal elections. It also directs all states to remove all noncitizens from their voter rolls.

Under the legislation, people would not be able to register to vote with only their driver's license, since noncitizens can obtain that. They would instead need to present documents proving U.S. citizenship, such as a birth certificate or U.S. passport.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said there isn’t enough support for the bill to pass the Senate, where it needs 60 votes and Republicans hold only 53.

Every Senate Democrat and all but three House Democrats vehemently oppose the bill, arguing that the in-person registration and proof of citizenship requirements would unduly burden Americans who are disabled, live in remote areas, or don’t have access to the correct documentation.

Yet despite the opposition, a vocal minority of Republicans – including Roy; Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla.; and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; – continue to push for not only a vote on the bill but also a tweaking of filibuster rules.

The so-called “hybrid talking filibuster” that they request would allow lawmakers to hold the floor and debate the House-passed SAVE America Act for as long as they are able. The group argues that it will at least force Senate Democrats to go on the record about why they oppose the bill.

“We were told for months that the clock and calendar were the biggest obstacles we faced to putting the SAVE America Act on the floor and debating it until it passed,” Lee said on social media Monday. “We had weeks of open runway available to us on August[.] Opportunities lost to recess in 2026 might not arise again.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressured Republican leadership to make the SAVE America Act a priority, even if it means eliminating the filibuster.

Trump and the bill’s supporters believe that many states’ weak voter registration requirements could jeopardize the party's chances of winning in the 2026 midterm elections. Existing law for voter registration in federal elections does not require the state to officially review or verify citizenship attestations, which Republicans argue is an election security risk.

"It took 60 days for the Senate to pass the Voting Rights Act in the 60s to make sure every American had the right to vote. It's WORTH them sitting there for 60 days and letting Democrats talk about how they don't want people to show photo ID in order to make sure only Americans can vote,” Fine posted Monday, pulling from a Fox News interview.

“I think what’s holding them up is the willingness to do the work that the American people voted for them to do.”

Multiple states found that noncitizens had cast votes in the 2024 presidential election. Though election officials are supposed to verify voters’ citizenship status on the backend, illegal votes are sometimes already counted before ineligible voters are identified, which happened in Michigan at least 15 times in 2024.