Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) told Breitbart News Saturday that passing the SAVE America Act through the Senate comes down to “math,” and if enough Senate Republicans would back a “talking filibuster.”
Johnson spoke to Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle as President Donald Trump, conservatives, and the MAGA base have urged the Senate to pass the House-passed SAVE America Act, with Trump calling it his “No. 1 priority.” The SAVE America Act, among other things, would require proof of identification to register to vote and to vote at a polling station.
The House sent the bill to the Senate as a “message,” meaning that the legislation could be passed by the Senate with only 51 votes.
However, Senate Republicans would still need 60 votes to end debate on the legislation, which is more formally known as enacting cloture. In the absence of 60 votes to enact cloture, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has urged his Senate GOP colleagues to embrace the “talking filibuster,” a longstanding feature of Senate parliamentary procedure that would debate on legislation by physically exhausting those opposed to the legislation. Those opposed to ending debate on the legislation would be forced to continually talk on the Senate floor.
Johnson said the problem is that it appears there are not enough Senate Republicans to embrace the talking filibuster.
He said on Breitbart News Saturday, “Math is king in Washington, DC. We can do almost anything we want in the House if we got 218 votes and we can’t really do anything if we don’t have 218 votes. I know people are focused on the 60-vote threshold but there’s also another vote threshold that matters and that’s 51. If you don’t have 51 votes you can’t do anything in the Senate regardless of the filibuster, and my sense is… that they don’t have 51 votes to blow up the filibuster.”
Former White House Chief of Staff and former Rep. Mark Meadows, now a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), on March 11 compiled a list of Senate Republicans that have embraced the use of the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act. This includes:
- Jim Banks (IN)
- Marsha Blackburn (TN)
- Ted Budd (NC)
- Katie Britt (AL)
- Bill Cassidy (LA)
- John Cornyn (TX)
- Ted Cruz (TX)
- Joni Ernst (IA)
- Bill Hagerty (TN)
- Josh Hawley (MO)
- Ron Johnson (WI)
- Mike Lee (UT)
- Cynthia Lummis (WY)
- Roger Marshall (KS)
- Dave McCormick (PA)
- Ashely Moody (FL)
- Bernie Moreno (OH)
- Markwayne Mullin (OK)
- Rand Paul (KY)
- Jim Risch (ID)
- Eric Schmitt (MO)
- Rick Scott (FL)
- Tim Scott (SC)
- Tim Sheehy (MT)
- Dan Sullivan (AK)
- Tommy Tuberville (AL)
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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