Trump-backed bills on activist judges, non-citizen voting heading for House-wide votes
Two key bills backed by President Donald Trump are set to get a vote this week after advancing through the House Rules Committee on Monday evening.
The No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA Act) by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., would limit district court judges' ability to issue orders blocking Trump policies nationwide. The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is aimed at requiring proof of citizenship in the voting registration process.
The former legislation is a response to Trump's ongoing standoff with judges paralyzing his agenda, while the latter is a bill that the president and his allies have long pushed for.
Issa’s bill is slated to get a vote on Tuesday afternoon, while Roy’s is expected on the House floor Thursday morning.
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That’s provided they pass a procedural hurdle known as a "rule vote." A simple majority of House lawmakers is needed to pass a "rule" to allow for debate and eventual House-wide votes on legislation.
The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most legislation reaches the entire chamber, advanced a "rule" combining Issa and Roy’s bills with two financial regulatory measures that are also due for a vote this week if the rule passes.
Both pieces of legislation were slated to get House votes last week, but a showdown over an unrelated measure on proxy voting for new parents in Congress wound up paralyzing the chamber floor on Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the House’s first votes of the week.
"The Committee on Rules made efforts to protect this body from a take-it-or-leave-it, all-or-nothing proposal to impose proxy voting, which, while limited, would take us down the slippery slope and return us to the rampant abuse of unlimited proxy voting for members on both sides of the aisle that we witnessed when the Democrats imposed the practice during the COVID era, yet the body felt otherwise," House Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said at the outset of Monday's meeting.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the committee, said during his opening statement, "A supposedly pro-family party worked to block a simple, commonsense policy that supports working moms in Congress. It was a move that was unprecedented, and thankfully, a majority of members in our chamber pushed back."
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"When he lost the vote, Speaker Johnson sent everyone home, blaming the few Republicans who had the guts to take a stand for family values," McGovern said.
With the matter resolved, both the rule vote and both measures themselves are expected to pass with little drama.
It's likely a different matter in the Senate, however, where both bills would need help from at least some Democrats to meet the body's 60-vote threshold for advancement.