Senate Republicans are facing a full-circle moment on the filibuster.
Four years ago, the GOP stood united against a failed attempt by Democrats to sidestep the chamber’s 60-vote supermajority requirement and pass a voting-rights bill demanded by their party base. Now — with their own trifecta and their own elections bill at issue — Republicans are under pressure to do much the same.
The shoe-on-the-other-foot moment is being fueled by a cadre of hard-right senators arguing forcefully for tactics once embraced by Senate progressives. Many Democrats, meanwhile, are keeping silent and watching as the GOP undergoes similar internal turmoil to what they had experienced in the majority.
Only a few, like Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), have acknowledged the irony of the moment — noting in a statement Tuesday that the push for the GOP elections bill looks a lot like what Democrats had previously attempted.
“Once again, I do not support these efforts,” she said in a statement. “Ensuring public trust in our elections is at the core of our democracy, but federal overreach is not how we achieve this.”
But the dial on the intraparty pressure cooker is set to ratchet up Wednesday, when House Republicans are expected to pass the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate. Backed by an Elon Musk-driven public pressure campaign, the conservative hard-liners are working overtime to bend their GOP colleagues toward allowing a “talking filibuster” — a strategy they believe will ultimately allow the Senate to act on a simple-majority basis.
Much as Democrats said their voting-rights legislation dealt with existential issues of democracy that necessitated an exception to the filibuster, GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and his allies argue SAVE America is essential to securing elections — including the upcoming midterms — from a purported surge of noncitizen voting.
The bill would mandate voters present proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register and would require photo ID to vote in every state, among other changes, and has garnered strong backing from President Donald Trump. The push to make Democrats hold the floor indefinitely if they want to block it has picked up support from many of Trump’s GOP allies in the Senate.
“I’m a fan of the talking filibuster … especially as Democrats have proven more and more obstructionist,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said forcing a talking filibuster is “exactly what we should do” and that he’s “making the case vigorously” for it.
But many other Senate Republicans are wary of any step that further waters down the 60-vote margin after both parties have already diluted it over the past decade. Once a majority makes an exception for one bill, Republicans argue it will effectively mark the beginning of the end for the legislative filibuster — something many of them see as a bulwark against big-government Democratic policies, not an obstacle to GOP priorities.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he was not eager to rejoin a battle that has resulted in party-line confirmations of presidential nominees after a series of partisan escalations involving the so-called “nuclear option.”
Tillis said he did not see a substantial difference between those sorts of rules changes and instead by trying to force Democrats into a talking filibuster, which GOP proponents suggest would not require going nuclear. Both, he said, have the “same fundamental message.”
Lee has been urging his legion of X followers to reach out to his GOP colleagues, seeking to build public pressure on them to support the voting bill even if it means throwing them into a filibuster fight they don’t want.
He also gave a presentation on his talking filibuster proposal during a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday, and the topic is expected to come up again Wednesday when Senate Republicans hold a private retreat on Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, a band of ultraconservatives in the House, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), is trying to focus pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Luna told reporters last week that she had received “assurances” that the Senate would allow a talking filibuster for the voting bill — something Thune denied.
The multifront push has sparked frustration among Senate Republicans, according to two people granted anonymity to speak candidly, who warned that trying to put words in Thune and other GOP senators’ mouths was only undermining her cause.
A GOP senator who granted anonymity to disclose private discussions said that while Lee gave a good presentation during Tuesday’s lunch, “a lot of people in the room are sick of Mike Lee fundraising off of it.”
“It’s a political spectacle,” the senator added. “It’s never going to happen. It doesn’t work.”
Republican senators have raised concerns that pursuing a talking filibuster strategy would require either eating up potentially weeks of floor time with no guarantee of success or pursuing strategies that would require procedural votes that would essentially require 50 GOP lawmakers to sidestep recent Senate precedent — a hurdle they wouldn’t be able to clear.
A spokesperson for Lee did not respond to a request for comment.
Republicans have been privately circulating op-eds detailing the procedural headaches they could invite upon themselves if they backed Lee’s idea. And they’ve warned that opening up the floor to unlimited amendments could set the stage for Democrats to hijack any bill and turn it into a health care bill or tariff bill or any other proposal they could get a majority to support.
Many GOP senators aside from Tillis, who is retiring, are starting to speak out against the idea — including Sen. John Curtis of Utah, who said that “for those concerned in the House, I also oppose skirting around the filibuster.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota predicted that it wouldn’t go anywhere and summed up his own position as “not interested.”
One Democrat who has closely studied the issue, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said he relished the idea of a “talking filibuster.” During the Biden-era debates over voting legislation, he put forward a proposal of his own — albeit with rules changes that would ultimately allow debate to end.
“If they’re operating within the existing rules and looking to have an extended debate where they maintain a quorum and go day and night … I say thumbs up,” Merkley said.
Thune has vowed to put the SAVE America Act up for a Senate vote at some point after it comes over from the House, and he said he was open to discussions about getting it passed. But he reiterated Tuesday that changing the 60-vote filibuster through a party-line vote is an idea “that doesn’t have a future.”
Asked later if he knew how a “talking filibuster” could work without a prolonged floor battle — something the South Dakota Republican warned could derail other GOP priorities — Thune started laughing.
“No, I don’t,” Thune said. “It takes you back over 100 years. So, unlimited debate and unlimited amendments. … Nobody knows.”
Calen Razor and Leo Shane III contributed to this report.
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