Senate Majority Leader John Thune has no intention of abandoning the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a source familiar with the bill process told The Federalist.
On Monday afternoon, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., posted on her X account that Thune is washing his hands of the critical election integrity reform bill supported by the vast majority of Americans.
“Just so America knows, after two weeks in recess, John Thune is no longer considering the SAVE America Act,” Luna wrote.
The congressional source with knowledge of the situation told The Federalist on Monday evening that Luna’s comment “is not true.” He said the bill, which requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and photo identification at the polls, is “still the pending business in the Senate.”
“We will be considering ICE and Border Patrol funding followed by FISA, all priorities of the president,” the congressional insider wrote in an email to The Federalist. “The senate can always return to SAVE after considering those items. We started debating it five weeks ago.”
‘If We Don’t Have Other Pressing Stuff’
Luna’s assertion seemed to have some supporting evidence.
An X post Monday by Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio raised concerns that the SAVE America Act was doomed. Desiderio reported the Senate “is off the bill this week and may not return to it any time soon, if at all.” Thune reportedly told Punchbowl’s Laura Weiss that the Senate has “other pressing stuff” to take care of.
“If we don’t have other pressing stuff in front of us that has to get done … then we’ll see about getting that going,” Thune said, according to the reporter’s X post.
The Senate Majority Leader did, seemingly against the odds, bring the bill to the Senate floor — on St. Patrick’s Day — and ensured that it would at least receive a “full and robust debate”. The South Dakota Republican pulled a procedural lever to get around the “silent filibuster,” the Senate’s lazy practice of forestalling floor debate. So Republicans and Democrats spent the first several days delivering speeches, the right on the 80/20 issue that is voter ID, the left hyperbolically calling the election integrity reforms “Jim Crow 2.0.”
“Missing through more than a week of debate were the all-nighter speeches, marathon orations, and back-to-back lawmakers demanding floor time that some had hoped to see,” Roll Call reporter Savannah Behrmann wrote 10 days after the bill hit the floor.
Thune’s maneuver allows the Senate to take up other business and go back to the SAVE America Act. As long as it remains in play, there’s still a chance — remote as it may be — for enough Democrats feeling enough pressure to join Republicans in getting to the 60 votes needed to break cloture and then pass the bill by a simple majority vote.
‘John Thune is the Problem’
Critics have called the half-way debate “political theater,” a way for the majority leader’s team to appease President Donald Trump and the millions of Americans calling for the upper house to put in more than a 3 1/2-day workweek and do what it takes to move the SAVE America Act to the president’s desk.
Conservatives led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who introduced the legislation, have exhorted Senate leadership to employ the “talking filibuster,” which would require Democrats to speak around the clock to keep the filibuster up. It would also force Republicans to stay close to the Senate to keep a quorum when the Dems finally crack and a vote can be called. Some find that prospect icky.
Stay on it. That’s the call from Lee, Trump, and others who have said the election-integrity bill is the no. 1 priority. But the Senate has turned its attention elsewhere, including a recent two-week spring break, while putting the legislation on the back burner. Thune’s South Dakota colleague sounded testy last month when asked about the status of the SAVE America Act.
“We’ve been doing other things as well. We’ve been running nominations through, and we’re continuing trying to find a path forward on the Department of Homeland Security funding,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Roll Call, referencing the Democrats’ political temper tantrum that has blocked funding for portions of the Department of Homeland Security. Like election integrity, the left loathes enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.
Luna has been among the most vocal critics of the Senate’s political show, and of Thune in particular.
“John Thune is a problem,” the Florida Republican told journalist Catherine Herridge late last week on her podcast. “I do not like what he’s done because he has every ability, and really it’s him that’s blocking voter ID. He has every ability to embrace the standing filibuster or remove the filibuster.
‘We Are Glad the SAVE Act Died in the Senate’
Luna supports “nuking the filibuster” to pass the SAVE America Act, and attaching voter ID to the criminally abusive FISA reauthorizaton. The House recently extended by 10 days the current anti-terrorism tool long the bone of contention for those who value the Fourth Amendment and have been opposed to the deep state spying on fellow Americans.
Luna told Herridge the Democrats are going to blow up the filibuster when they get back into power anyway, so Republicans might as well get something of value while they have the chance.
“Yes, FISA needs reform, but I think the number one most important issue in the country right now is voter ID,” the lawmaker said. “And if we can’t deliver on that, then people like John Thune do not deserve to come back to Congress. Vote him out. He’s not up for reelection, but when it’s time.”
Luna’s fellow Florida Republican, Rep. Greg Steube, shared many of the same sentiments, going after the Senate’s “Republicans in Name Only.”
“The House passed the SAVE America Act over 2 months ago,” Steube wrote Monday on his X account. “@LeaderJohnThune, nuke the filibuster and get it done! Seems pretty easy to everyone but the RINOs in the Senate…”
Thune has repeatedly told anyone who would listen that moving the SAVE America Act though the Senate is “way more complicated” than his critics paint it. He’s said that he doesn’t have enough votes in his conference to kill the fillibuster.
On Monday, the radical, conservative-hating Southern Poverty Law Center fired out a hasty statement applauding the Senate’s “rejection” of the SAVE America Act.
“We are glad the SAVE Act died in the Senate. We are grateful to every senator who stood firm against it. To every American who called, wrote and organized to make their voice heard, thank you – your voice matters,” the activist nonprofit’s Laura Williamson said.
While anything said by an organization that spends its time labellngnon-violent conventional conservative organizations as hate groups should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s clear the vultures on the left are beginning to circle the limping SAVE America Act.
