Forty House Republicans defied Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Tuesday in a failed attempt to stall Senate-backed legislation until Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) advances the SAVE America Act.
The GOP rebels opposed a measure sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) on two small business innovation programs that passed the Senate on March 3. But the legislation still passed 345 to 41, with all but one Democrat voting yes, because House GOP leadership put it on the floor under suspension of rules. The parliamentary procedure requires that legislation pass by a two-thirds majority.
The move from GOP leadership comes as several Republicans, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), have pledged to vote against all legislation sent to the House by the Senate until the chamber passes the SAVE America Act, which would require an ID to cast a ballot and proof of citizenship to register to vote.
While the GOP hard-liners failed to sink the Senate measure on Tuesday, Luna has stated the revolt will continue and extend to other House measures. Already, she has called for the SAVE America Act to be attached to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or any other must-pass bill in the House.
“To our frontliners: your seat depends on it,” Luna wrote in a post to X. “To @SpeakerJohnson: our majority depends on it. To the country: we are going to give the Senate a spanking.”
The SAVE America Act, which is spearheaded by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), has significant support from President Donald Trump, who called the legislation the “most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress, and America itself.”
The president went on to say that he would never endorse a Republican lawmaker who votes against the legislation, and only “sick, demented, or deranged people in the House or Senate” could vote no on it.
Senate Republicans kicked off debate on the SAVE America Act on Tuesday under the chamber’s standing 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Debate is expected to take days and could extend into the weekend. However, the legislation is likely to still fail, with Thune adamant there are not enough votes to pass it in the upper chamber.
At least one Republican is already planning to vote no, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).
Supporters of the SAVE America Act are pushing for Thune to skirt the 60-vote threshold to get the legislation through the chamber by implementing a “talking” filibuster instead. The standard Senate filibuster only requires a lawmaker to express opposition to a bill before 60 votes are required to advance the legislation.
“We don’t have the votes either to proceed, get on a talking filibuster, nor sustain one if we got on, but that’s just a that is just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Thune told reporters earlier this month. “I mean, I understand the president’s got a passion to see this issue addressed, as we all do.”
A talking filibuster, in comparison, forces lawmakers opposing a bill to speak on the Senate floor for as long as possible and could eat up weeks of floor time.
While Luna and members of the House Freedom Caucus have pledged to oppose any Senate legislation until the SAVE America Act reaches Trump’s desk, one piece of legislation from the upper chamber did make it through the House on Monday.
A bill to help Holocaust survivors and their families find their artwork that was confiscated by the Nazis passed through a voice vote, as no members were present to ask for a recorded vote.
Luna decried the move, calling the passage of the bill “shady” because leadership did it “under suspension after they told us votes were canceled and there would not be floor votes.”