The Save America Act remains stalled after upper chamber Republicans left Washington for their August recess without finding a path to pass the sweeping elections bill, and a related budget framework tied to President Trump’s broader agenda is now at risk of slipping until after the November midterms. Upper chamber Majority Leader John Thune said Today that Republicans would likely need to revisit reconciliation legislation at some point, but he declined to commit to a timeline for September.
The stalemate followed a Friday night meeting between Thune, President Trump and Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida, who had pushed colleagues to cancel the August recess entirely and force a vote on the full Save America Act. After a two hour conference meeting, the senators acknowledged they did not have enough support within their own party to move the bill forward.
Rather than advancing the complete Save America Act, Republicans agreed to hold an immediate vote on just one piece of it, a requirement that voters show photo identification in federal elections. That narrower measure, sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio, failed on the upper chamber floor Today, echoing a similar defeat in March when Democrats blocked the same language by a vote of 53 to 47. Upper chamber Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats broadly support voter identification and has pointed to a provision included in the party’s 2021 Freedom to Vote Act, even though Democrats have repeatedly voted down Republican backed versions of the requirement.
Conservative senators framed the vote as a way to put individual Democrats on record on identification specifically, separate from the more sweeping and more divisive elements of the Save America Act.
The full bill has already come up for a vote five times without Republicans finding the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, and Thune has said repeatedly that the upper chamber does not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster to force election reform through, despite pressure from Trump to do so. That impasse is what pushed Johnson, Lee and Scott to demand a summer recess cancellation in the first place, a demand Trump ultimately did not back once it became clear a vote could fail on the floor.
A separate but related fight over a budget resolution compounded the pressure. Republicans worried that resolution, meant to boost defense spending, farm assistance and election grant funding, would expose vulnerable GOP senators to politically difficult votes forced by Democrats on food assistance, a White House ballroom project and a fund tied to a settlement between Trump and the IRS. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would oppose the resolution specifically to protect colleagues facing tough races this year, and Republicans ultimately agreed to set that vote aside until after recess as well.
Nothing is scheduled. One Republican senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said leaving town without adopting a budget framework or forcing further action on election legislation could effectively end this year’s push on both fronts. September brings a packed agenda of its own, including avoiding a government shutdown, passing Russia sanctions and reviving a stalled cryptocurrency bill, all ahead of the midterms, leaving little guaranteed floor time for another run at the Save America Act.
