Elections overhaul takes center stage in House as hard-right pressure mounts

The House is set to vote next week on a once-obscure elections bill that has now become a household name among hard-right activists and a major rallying point for an otherwise divided GOP.

The SAVE America Act, aimed at tightening voter registration standards, has a difficult path to enactment despite a no-holds-barred pressure campaign from the likes of President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk. Democrats are certain to filibuster the bill in the Senate, and it’s unlikely the GOP is ready to take extraordinary steps to overcome that hurdle.

But amid growing fears that their party is not doing enough to address Americans’ key concerns — rising prices chief among them — House GOP leaders and key senators have chosen to put the election security push at the center of their agenda.

The issue almost tanked a massive government funding package this week and threatened to extend a four-day partial government shutdown — until Trump intervened and ordered House Republicans to pass the bill without attaching the elections legislation.

But the issue is not going away. Besides the House action next week — the chamber’s second vote on a version of the legislation in less than a year — there is a mounting campaign on GOP senators to find ways around Democratic opposition and get the bill to Trump’s desk.

Trump is personally involved in the effort. Majority Leader Steve Scalise spoke with the president about the bill at a Jan. 29 White House meeting, and GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin met with Trump to discuss it Thursday afternoon.

Scalise said in an interview that Trump “wants to find the best place to get it passed so it can get signed into law” and Republican leaders are “in the process of working with the president to get the best path forward.”

The legislation would trigger major changes to how Americans vote, including requiring would-be voters to present proof of citizenship to register, eliminating mail-only registrations, and requiring photo ID in every state for the first time. It would also require states to take new steps to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls.

The push for the bill has taken flight among GOP hard-liners, who won a private promise from Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule the upcoming vote, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the conversations, in lieu of attaching the election bill to the larger spending package and threatening its ability to clear the Senate.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair this week also wrangled House GOP holdouts upset over the lack of action on the elections bill. The top Trump political aide worked to salvage the funding package in a series of phone calls in the final minutes before it was ultimately passed, according to three people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Democrats and voting-access advocates have attacked the legislation as likely to disenfranchise huge swaths of legitimate voters in a misguided effort to address an alleged epidemic of noncitizen voting that they say does not exist.

“If you’re one of the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who does not have access to your birth certificate, or if you’re one of the 50 percent of Americans who don’t have a passport, the SAVE Act could make it impossible for you to participate in elections,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said this week.

But the bill is in keeping with Trump’s longstanding belief, unsupported by evidence, that elections in many states are “rigged” in favor of Democrats and that strong federal action is needed to rectify it. He said in an interview this week that Republicans should seek to “nationalize” elections.

Addressing House Republicans at a policy retreat last month, Trump told them they “ought to pass” the SAVE America Act, formerly known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

“Our elections are crooked as hell, and you can win — not only win elections over that and not only win future elections, but you'll win every debate because the public is really angry about it,” he said.

He reiterated the message in a Truth Social post Thursday, published after his meeting with the three senators: “We are either going to fix [America’s elections], or we won’t have a Country any longer.”

The House is expected to vote on a procedural measure Tuesday paving the final floor action later in the week. What happens in the Senate after that is less clear.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has pledged to call the bill up for a vote at some point in the coming months, but under normal circumstances Democrats could block it from proceeding.

Yet rank-and-file House Republicans and some GOP senators are pushing for a breakthrough, urging Thune to require a “talking filibuster” or “standing filibuster” that would eventually, they believe, force Democrats to relent. The change would force senators to be present and speaking on the Senate floor to block legislation, as opposed to the current practice of requiring 60 votes to end debate and move to the final passage of most bills.

But Thune has treaded carefully around any suggestion that the 60-vote rule should be diluted. Many Republican senators want to see the supermajority threshold start in place, and Thune dismissed claims from some House Republicans this week that he had agreed to pursue the talking filibuster route. He said he would only agree to discuss the matter with his conference.

With the Senate still working through how to pass long-term Department of Homeland Security funding, that internal conversation has yet to take place. Some senators are privately and publicly warning the push could tie up the Senate floor for weeks or months, blocking other GOP priorities.

Some hard-line Republicans are floating a trial run, using the talking filibuster to try to pass a DHS funding stopgap, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private discussions.

“I would just remind people that the coin of the realm in the Senate is floor time, and we have a lot of things we have to do,” Thune told reporters. “Triggering a talking filibuster has implications and ramifications that I think everybody needs to be aware of. So we will have those discussions.”

In a sign that Republicans are looking at this as more than a political messaging exercise, the bill’s proponents say they are addressing some of the criticisms of the bill — including that it could effectively bar members of the U.S. military stationed abroad from voting.

Co-author Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said there are exceptions in the bill that would address the military and other concerns but allow only “true absentee ballots.” He said he was otherwise focused on pushing the other chamber to sidestep Democrats and send the bill to Trump.

“They get on the Senate floor, they can call the question, if there are people willing to speak … there'll be drama, and then we'll see what happens,” Roy said. “We'll see who wins, but that's what we're supposed to do.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.