Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to launch debate on a GOP elections bill President Donald Trump called his “No. 1 priority” in Congress. They are preparing to keep it on the floor at least into next week.
Senators voted 51-48 to take up the House-passed SAVE America Act that would institute new citizenship and photo ID requirements in order to participate in elections. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted against opening debate, and Rep. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) did not vote. Both had aired concerns about the process.
The Senate is expected to spend days, and potentially weeks, debating the bill in a bid to pacify conservatives and corner Democrats who oppose the new election restrictions. The debate is expected to include some late-night and weekend sessions.
But in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, discussions of the bill devolved into an increasingly contentious GOP-on-GOP fight over how far the party should go to try to pass it.
Conservative hard-liners, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), want to force a “talking filibuster,” which they argue can overcome the usual 60-vote legislative threshold by requiring Democrats to hold the floor in order to block the bill.
But after weeks of internal conversations, Republicans have rejected that effort, which they fear could tie up the floor indefinitely and potentially let Democrats hijack the Senate agenda by forcing amendment votes on their own priorities.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to call up several amendments, including a proposal to expand the bill to include Trump-backed restrictions on mail voting, on transgender women participating in women’s sports and on gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Thune’s move will limit Democrats’ ability to call up their own amendments and try to sidetrack the bill. Democrats have other options to frustrate the GOP, however, such as moving to adjourn the Senate or killing the bill.
Lee continues to advocate for a more aggressive approach: “If your senators don’t support using the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, you might need to replace them,” he wrote on X late Monday night.
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