After failing to advance in the Senate four separate times in two years and drawing opposition from members of their own party, Republicans are once again attempting to resurrect the SAVE America Act (an even more extreme version of the original SAVE Act)—legislation that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote.
More than 21 million Americans don't have ready access to those documents, and married women who have changed their names will face additional hurdles if their birth certificates no longer match their legal names. And all of it is aimed at combating a problem—widespread noncitizen voting—that election officials and researchers have repeatedly debunked.
The renewed push comes at the insistence of President Donald Trump, who has made the legislation one of his top priorities.
Now, at Trump's insistence, desperate House Republicans are searching for yet another legislative vehicle to move the measure. “The president has [the SAVE America] as a top priority, and so do I,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Fox News on Sunday. "We’re going to try one more time on a budget reconciliation bill, and I think that will be the way to get it through the Senate, and finally, to the president’s desk.”
Johnson claims he plans to tack SAVE onto the budget reconciliation package, in which Congress sets overall spending and revenue targets for the year—despite the Senate parliamentarian already having blocked this exact move last month: During the “vote-a-rama” on a different reconciliation bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered the SAVE Act as an amendment. The parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined the legislation could not be included because it violated the Byrd Rule, which limits the reconciliation process (which only requires a simple majority to pass) to provisions primarily related to federal spending and revenue. MacDonough deemed the bill's core provisions—requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and imposing new voter registration requirements—as election policy, not budget policy.
The post After Repeated Defeats, Republicans Are Trying to Revive the SAVE Act Yet Again appeared first on Ms. Magazine.
