GOP Senators: Nuke The Filibuster, Pass The SAVE America Act
To save the SAVE America Act the Republican-controlled Senate must blow up the filibuster, two conservative senators tell The Federalist.
The very thought makes most members of the Senate GOP conference weak in the knees, fearing what Democrats would do without the iron line of a 60-vote threshold to move legislation forward. Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin aren’t in that camp.
Johnson sees it as a kind of golden rule in recognizing that Democrats have no ceiling when it comes to nasty politics. So, do unto others before they do unto you.
“Again, I don’t know how much more broken the United States Senate could be before my colleagues kind of wake up, smell the roses and go, ‘Yeah, we better act before they do,’” Wisconsin’s senior senator told me recently on a The Benjamin Yount Show on WISN in Milwaukee.
Johnson and his like-minded colleagues believe you go big or go home, and republic-saving election reform package is worth nuking the “silent filibuster” — the deliberative Senate’s bill kill switch.
‘We Have to Get Rid of the Filibuster’
Congress returns to work next week after its extended spring break, and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, awaits more fruitless debate. Democrats aren’t budging on the bill that requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and photo identification to cast a ballot. They have made ludicrous claims that the SAVE America Act will disenfranchise millions of voters who apparently are completely helpless in obtaining an ID to vote while they use ID for just about everything else. Cyndi Lauper says it’s so.
“It’s me, Cyndi. Don’t be fooled. The SAVE Act is not about protecting against voter fraud — it’s about voter suppression. Congress is trying to pass the SAVE Act to make it harder to vote, especially for millions of women,” the irrelevant 1980s pop star said in an Instagram video. “First, they come after our right to control our bodies, and now they’re coming after our right to vote. So, we must stop them,” she declared. In other words, Girls Just Want to Have Fun and they can’t do that under the weight of election integrity laws.
Perhaps Lauper was “She Bopping” too much to figure out that Democrats just really wanna have noncitizens and other ineligible liberals vote in federal elections. Senate Democrats couldn’t even be bothered to pass an amended, stripped-down version of the SAVE Act that contained only the voter ID provision — despite lying that they support voter ID.
They are among the minority of Americans that don’t back the core elements of the election-integrity measures, among the endangered 80-20 issues in the deeply divided United States.
“I think we have to get rid of the filibuster because I don’t think the Democrats are going to come along,” the Florida Republican told me on the latest edition of The Federalist Radio Hour podcast, set for release Friday.
‘Rabbits Out of His Hat’
Scott would like to see Republicans push the old-school filibuster — the talking filibuster — to force Dems to have to defend their unpopular position on the Senate floor until they tire and cave. The idea is that enough of the 47 liberals will join the 53 Republicans in the majority to hit 60 votes and the all-important cloture to end the debate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has made it clear the talking filibuster is a non-starter for many of his members.
“It’s not John Thune that’s killing it. It’s members of the Republican Party that are not convinced that a talking filibuster can be used to pass this,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told Fox News last month. “It will be an infliction of tremendous delays on other matters before the U.S. Senate without the positive results of passage of the SAVE Act.”
Again, proponents of the talking filibuster say passage of the SAVE America Act is well worth any inconvenience the soft-schedule Senate might face. Never fear. Lummis believes the Senate majority leader has some magic left in him. She’s watched Thune “pull rabbits out of his hat before.”
The rabbit in this case would be milquetoast senators growing a pair.
The Senate has been debating the legislation on and off since St. Patrick’s Day. It’s been mostly political theater since. Some Republicans like Scott remain hopeful that reconciliation offers a path to passage through a simple majority vote on a must-pass bill. It’s a long shot at best, other GOP senators insist.
‘If We Don’t Do It Now’
President Donald Trump has said the SAVE America Act is at the top of his domestic policy priority list. Hammering the Dem talking points, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., last month said the real reason Trump wants the bill on his desk “is to reduce the number of people voting in the November election.”
Trump, like anyone paying any attention at all and not blowing off increasing election integrity threats, has seen the surge in the number of noncitizens showing up on state voter rolls. He’s warned of the duplicate mail ballots pushed out in droves in universal vote-by-mail states. And he’s watched as leftist activist groups working in conjunction with blue-state election offices have targeted liberal voters who may or may not be eligible to vote in get-out-the-vote drives.
“I would nuke the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News’ chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram a day before debate began last month.
That’s a change of heart from early November, when Marshall told NewsNation that he would vote no on ending the filibuster, although he was “reserving the nuclear option.” The question came up in context of the Democrats’ stupid government shutdown, the longest in history.
But Johnson said Republicans have a “split party” on the nuclear option, between those who think the Democrats will blow up the filibuster when they get back into power and those “hoping against all hope they won’t.”
They got very close in 2021 with a radical bill that would have truly nationalized elections, stripped states of voter ID laws, prohibited clean voter rolls, and eroded basic election security, among other assaults on election integrity. Two Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — interestingly enough refused to go along with their party’s attempt at a talking filibuster.
Johnson said he wants to see where Democrats stand on ending the filibuster today, knowing it could benefit them eventually. Several Dems would have to join to hit the nuclear threshold.
“They’ve transmitted, you know, their game plan here. It couldn’t be more obvious what their game plan is,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
Republicans might as well get integrity (and confidence) back into U.S. elections while they hold the power to do so, Johnson said. “If we don’t do it now, the minute the Democrats get power they will end the filibuster. They will pass their nationalization of our elections, and it’s over. Game over.”
There are plenty of distractions in D.C. There are always are. The war in Iran has taken a lot of attention away from domestic priorities, not the least of which is the SAVE America Act. When congress returns next week, Scott said the fight must continue.
“We cannot stop until we get the SAVE America Act passed. We’ve got to stay on this bill,” the senator said.