The House of Representatives passed a spending bill on Wednesday that includes the Save America Act, a measure that would ban mail-in ballots and impose new voter identification requirements. The vote was 217-209, largely along party lines.
Latest Attempt to Pass Voting Restrictions
This is the latest effort by congressional Republicans to pass the Save America Act, which former President Donald Trump has demanded. The bill would prohibit mail-in ballots and require voters to show identification when registering and casting ballots. Republicans argue it is necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting and combat election fraud. However, voting rights advocates say there is no evidence of widespread election tampering and warn the bill could disenfranchise eligible voters ahead of November's midterm elections.
The House approved a version of the bill in February, but it has no path to passing the Senate, where top Democrats oppose it and can use the filibuster to block it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to again block the measure. "I'll say it as many times as it takes: the [Save America] Act is dead on arrival here in the Senate," Schumer said ahead of the House vote. "I don't care how Republicans try to package their plan to resurrect the old ghost of Jim Crow – we will kill it."
Republican Pressure and Disruption
Right-wing House Republicans have insisted their leaders make the bill a priority. Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to combine the Save America Act with a bill authorizing spending by the State Department and related agencies. Trump has repeatedly insisted that Congress's Republican majorities approve the bill, going as far as to disrupt the legislative agenda. He tied its passage to the renewal of a foreign surveillance law that expired last month and refused to sign a federal housing policy bill that was approved with bipartisan support in protest of the lack of progress on Save America. The housing measure went into law last week without his signature.
Conservative House lawmakers late last month shut down the chamber's floor by opposing procedural motions that must pass before legislation can be voted on. They relented earlier this week, backing Johnson's plan to link Save America to appropriations measures. That process is set to be disrupted if Republicans press on with attaching the Save America Act to such legislation, raising the possibility of a government shutdown later this year.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who led the blockade of the House floor, sought to channel the blame to Senate Majority Leader John Thune if Save America fails again. "If John Thune strips it out in the Senate that will be on him and the entire country should be watching what he does," Luna said. "His state party should censure him and/or he should be primaried if he wants to betray his constituents in this manner. That is the nature of politics."
