Fatal flaw exposed in GOP scheme to ram through voting restrictions: analyst

With no path forward to pass President Donald Trump's pet voting rights restriction bill, the SAVE America Act, through the Senate, some House GOP officials are devising an alternative strategy to pass some provisions that wouldn't be subject to a Democratic filibuster — but Beltway analysts are already warning this strategy has a massive flaw that could quickly derail it.

According to Rachel Schilke of the Washington Examiner, "House Administration Committee is circulating 5 reconciliation proposals, such as voter ID and funds to require proof of citizenship; Reconciliation 2.0 is a long shot but leaders remain optimistic about passing something before the midterms."

Reconciliation, the same process used to pass Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" of tax and health care cuts last year, is a process reserved for budgetary bills. It is not subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.

But according to Bloomberg News' Erik Wasson, this strategy is almost certainly a nonstarter.

"These proposals likely fail the Byrd Rule in [the] Senate for having a merely incidental fiscal impact," he wrote on X.

The "Byrd Rule" requires any provision of a reconciliation bill to serve a clear budgetary function, either by raising taxes or cutting spending. It does not allow provisions that "incidentally" affect federal spending, but are there primarily for another purpose, like requiring states to implement new restrictions on voting and then awarding grants to help them do so.

Trump has demanded that the GOP make passing the SAVE Act voter restrictions their top priority, and has even threatened to boycott signing any other legislation until it arrives on his desk. The legislation is so restrictive that even Republican-backed states moving to pass it at the state level have left out some of its more controversial elements.