Senate Republicans have sidelined the SAVE America Act, arguing that it shouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the party’s priority list, especially amid the Iran war and growing economic woes.
Republican leaders this week were forced to remove the proposal as pending business in the chamber as they shifted gears to pass the budget resolution. That effectively benched the bill — which has been championed by President Donald Trump and considered a top agenda item — after an extensive pressure campaign by conservative members and influencers.
The necessary move, however, was greeted with a sigh of relief by a number of Republicans who, while supportive of the measure, believe it’s time to move on to more pressing matters. They also believe the pro-SAVE America Act blitz, led by Sen. Mike Lee and like-minded conservatives, did little to help the case, and may have backfired. Members are ready to bid it adieu as they near the final six months before the midterms.
“They’ve convinced themselves that the longer it hangs around, the more popular it gets. The reality is — I’m quite certain they haven’t gained a single vote, and may have lost a few with time,” one Senate Republican told NOTUS. “There’s some things that aren’t possible, and this is one of them.”
The member noted that while key parts of the bill — which requires voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote — poll well with wide swaths of Americans, including Democrats, it is hardly considered a leading issue for voters.
“When put in a lineup of the top 100 things people are thinking about every day, it doesn’t get very high on the list,” the senator continued. “We’re spending a lot of the precious resource of time and energy on something that’s not top-of-mind awareness to voters.”
Polling suggests as much. ACNN surveytaken in late March found that only 2% cited voting and elections as the most important issue facing the country, with scores of other topics dwarfing it related to the economy, foreign policy and immigration.
Adding to the calculus is what Senate Majority Leader John Thune and others have indicated in the past: that there is no path for the bill to pass. Lee and conservatives have been loudly beating the drums for months for the chamber to scrap the 60-vote requirement in favor of a “talking filibuster,” a tactic that requires senators to talk continuously in order to block or delay a vote.
That idea does not have anywhere close to enough support. That was shown to be the case in the wee hours of Thursday morning when four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis — sided with Democrats on anamendmentthat would have added parts of the voting bill to the narrow border-security measure Republican leaders are trying to pass via budget reconciliation.
All four are staunch filibuster supporters and are against watering it down to deal with the voting bill.
Source: Drudge Report
