Utah senator says support is sufficient to begin debate on House-passed voter ID legislation, with vice president available to break tie.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Sen. Mike Lee announced that the SAVE America Act now has the backing of 50 senators, a threshold he says is sufficient to advance the House-passed election integrity bill to floor debate.
“We’ve got 49 Senate sponsors of the SAVE America Act and at least one more—Senator Collins—who supports it, and that takes us to 50!” Lee wrote in a post on X. “We now have enough votes to pass a motion to proceed to the House-passed bill—even without any additional votes—with @VP breaking the tie.”
The SAVE America Act cleared the House earlier this month by a 218–213 vote. According to reporting by Breitbart News’s Alana Mastrangelo, the measure “which seeks to keep non-citizens from voting” in federal elections passed with only one Democrat in support. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) was the sole member of his party to vote in favor, Mastrangelo reported.
The legislation is an updated version of the original Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House in April last year but was not taken up in the Senate. In addition to requiring photo identification to vote in federal elections, the current proposal would create a federal proof-of-citizenship requirement during voter registration and require states to maintain voter rolls free of ineligible individuals.
Lee acknowledged that moving the bill through the Senate will require additional procedural steps and urged colleagues to revive the “Talking Filibuster” as a strategy to force extended debate from opponents.
“I’m getting a lot of questions, ‘What’s next?’ now that we’ve got enough votes to get past a motion to proceed to the House-passed version of the SAVE America Act,” Lee said in a video shared on X, in which he admitted that while “there are no guarantees,” the “only shot” is to use the Talking Filibuster.
“We’ve got to put all of our efforts, i.e., encourage everyone who will listen to you. The Senate needs to invoke the Talking Filibuster, to enforce the Talking Filibuster,” Lee said. He added that “if Senators want to debate this, if they want to Filibuster it, make them work for it.”
President Donald Trump also weighed in on the issue in posts on Truth Social, criticizing opposition to voter identification requirements.
In one post, Trump stated that the absence of voter ID laws “is even crazier, and more ridiculous, than Men playing in Women’s Sports,” or having open borders.
“We cannot let the Democrats get away with NO VOTER I.D. any longer,” Trump wrote. “These are horrible, disingenuous CHEATERS. They have all sorts of reasons why it shouldn’t be passed, and then boldly laugh in the backrooms after their ridiculous presentations. If it weren’t such a serious matter, it would be considered a TOTAL JOKE! No Voter I.D. is even crazier, and more ridiculous, than Men playing in Women’s Sports, Open Borders, or Transgender for Everyone.”
In a separate Truth Social post, Trump vowed that there would “be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!”
The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on a motion to proceed to the legislation.
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