Murkowski breaks with GOP on voter ID, says push ‘is not how we build trust’

A Senate Republican who has routinely broken from the GOP and President Donald Trump announced that she wouldn’t support efforts to pass voter ID legislation. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a post on X on Tuesday that she would oppose forthcoming legislation that would enact more stringent election integrity laws backed by both Trump and conservatives in the upper chamber. Her opposition underscores a reality many in the Senate already acknowledge: without extraordinary steps such as nuking the filibuster or support from Democrats (a non-starter), the effort is effectively dead on arrival.

Murkowski panned a pair of bills — the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act, dubbed the SAVE America Act, and the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act — two voter ID and election integrity proposals making their way through the House. 

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She noted that when congressional Democrats "attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed."

"Now, I’m seeing proposals such as the SAVE Act and MEGA that would effectively do just that. Once again, I do not support these efforts," Murkowski said.  

Congressional Democrats under former President Joe Biden tried and failed to enact two election reform bills, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act. 

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Congressional Republicans strongly opposed those efforts, and argued at the time that the bills would effectively nationalize elections and give Democrats control of the election system across the country.

Conservatives’ bid to reshape the election landscape also runs into the Constitution, which delegates election authorities to state and local officials and gives the federal government little input. 

"Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the ‘times, places, and manner’ of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska," Murkowski said.  

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"Election Day is fast approaching," she continued. "Imposing new federal requirements now, when states are deep into their preparations, would negatively impact election integrity by forcing election officials to scramble to adhere to new policies, likely without the necessary resources. Ensuring public trust in our elections is at the core of our democracy, but federal overreach is not how we achieve this."

Her pushback comes as Trump has called on the GOP to nationalize elections. House Republicans are gearing up to vote on the SAVE America Act and a cohort of Senate Republicans are eying ways to get the bill onto the Senate floor.

Several Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have come out against Trump's call to nationalize elections. But public opposition to the voter ID efforts among Republicans is few and far between.

But given the political reality of the Senate, where the 60-vote filibuster threshold is an impossible bar to overcome without Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats' support, the bill will likely die.