Four Republican senators voted against an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to instruct the Senate Rules Committee to find a way to add the core elements of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act to a budget reconciliation package that could pass next month with a simple-majority vote.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted against Kennedy’s proposed instruction to the Senate Rules Committee to craft a bill that would ensure only American citizens vote in federal elections, require all voters to show proof of identity, and to require all ballots be counted within 36 hours of Election Day.
“I think we ought to go back to having an Election Day and not an election month,” Kennedy said on the floor.
Those are some of the key elements of the SAVE America Act, which President Trump has made his top legislative priority ahead of the midterm elections.
“This amendment would instruct our Rules Committee to come up with an elections bill. It’s my version of the SAVE America Act, but you can call it what you want,” Kennedy said on the floor before the vote.
Some proponents of the SAVE America Act, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), have argued that the legislation wasn’t drafted to pass the Senate under the budget reconciliation process, which generally prohibits policy changes with only a tangential budgetary impact from passing with a simple-majority vote.
Kennedy, however, argued that it was worth trying to fit it into the budget reconciliation package.
“Some say it can’t be done under the Budget Act and under the Byrd Rule and reconciliation. And you know what? They may be right. But you know what else? They can’t predict the future. They’re not clairvoyant,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s motion to waive the applicable rules in the Budget Act preventing his amendment from being attached to the budget resolution failed by a vote of 48-50.
Every Democrat present in the chamber voted against it.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) has condemned the SAVE America Act as “reminiscent of Jim Crow laws” and vowed that “nothing is more important than defeating this dagger to the heart of democracy.”
The Senate has debated the legislation on the Senate floor for weeks but moved off it this week to debate and pass the budget resolution to prepare the way for a reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through 2029.
Murkowski was the only Republican senator to vote against a motion to proceed to the SAVE America Act on March 17.
Updated April 23 at 12:07 p.m. EDT.
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