House GOP leadership has woven the SAVE America Act into the fabric of the House‘s legislative agenda after attaching portions of the election integrity bill to three important pieces of legislation this week in an attempt to force the Senate’s hand.
The moves underpin the great lengths House Republicans are going to in order to try to enact President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority, even if it means falling flat in the Senate. The Senate has routinely rejected the SAVE America Act.
Just this week, the House sent the Senate two pieces of legislation that included the SAVE America Act, making each of these pieces of legislation — the National Defense Authorization Act and a $95 billion party-line spending bill — dead on arrival. The House also passed the legislation as a stand-alone bill twice earlier this year.
“These are very popular and important and necessary objectives,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a press conference Tuesday. “Number one: secure American elections by passing the SAVE America Act law, as much of that as possible, that’s the objective. Number two: protect and strengthen our homeland.”
Johnson’s latest gambit is to attach the SAVE America Act to the $95 billion budget reconciliation bill, allowing it to bypass the 60-vote threshold. But even getting just a simple majority in the Senate has proven not to be feasible. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Thom Tills (R-NC) took down a voter ID and election integrity measure just last month.
Still, in its current form, the SAVE America Act would not pass the Senate’s Byrd Rule, which governs policies allowed in reconciliation bills, meaning Republicans would need to overrule the parliamentarian’s ruling, something Thune has previously refused to do.
The House also attached provisions requiring voters to show a valid ID when voting to the Stop Insider Trading Act, a bill to require a public seven-day notice before a lawmaker, spouse, or dependent can sell stock. The voter ID language made the GOP-led stock trade curb a nonstarter for Democrats in the House, and likely the Senate as well.
House Republicans have spent recent months pressuring the Senate to take up the SAVE America Act, as some House members have gone as far as to call out Thune on social media.
“What I LOVE about what the house is now doing with the SAVE AMERICA act is Thune will have to make a call,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) wrote on X. “Is he personally going to gut the Save America Act from every bill the House sends to the Senate? It will be at his direction and everyone is watching.”
The addition of this language to bills such as the NDAA and reconciliation halts these pieces of legislation as soon as they pass the House, leaving both the House and Senate in peril on must-pass pieces of legislation and leaving Trump frustrated with Thune.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune.
“He wants to see as much of the SAVE America [Act] passed as possible by the August recess,” she said. “He knows that’s what the American people want to see passed.”
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“The House did its job,” she said. “The Senate needs to do its job, too.”
“Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats,” Thune quipped back Thursday. “And if there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone. Let’s get them to ‘yes.’”
Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this article.