WASHINGTON (AP) — Under pressure from President Donald Trump, Senate Republicans plan to launch a “full and robust debate” next week on legislation to impose strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements, an effort to show Trump that they are serious about the bill even though it doesn’t have enough support to pass.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is planning a talkathon on the Senate floor for an indefinite period of time, though it won’t officially be the “talking filibuster” that Trump has suggested. Republicans plan to hold the floor for days, if not weeks, to pressure Democrats.
“I can guarantee that we are going to put Democrats on the record,” Thune said on the Senate floor Thursday as he announced the plan to take up the bill, which has already passed the House.
Trump has said he won’t sign any other legislation until the bill — known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE America Act — is passed. It faces unified opposition from Democrats, meaning that the Senate likely can’t approve it unless Republicans change the rules and eliminate the filibuster. Many GOP senators are unwilling to go that far.
Trump has made the bill a priority ahead of the midterm elections, arguing that Republicans need it to win — even as his party won the presidency and congressional majorities in 2024 without it. Federal law already requires that voters in national elections affirm under oath, at the risk of prosecution, that they are U.S. citizens.
The bill would also require that voters provide a photo ID when casting ballots, as many states already require.
An alternate path
The president’s insistence on the bill, and an energized push from the GOP base, has put pressure on Thune. The GOP leader has repeatedly said they don’t have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold, or even to move to the talking filibuster that Trump has aggressively lobbied them to deploy.
Even if they did have the votes, a talking filibuster would not guarantee passage. Supporters of that approach say that Democrats would eventually tire of speaking or allow the legislation to pass. But Democrats would also be allowed to bring up an indefinite number of amendments on any subject, forcing Republicans to take hard votes in an election year and delaying the process even more.
“We can’t find a piece of legislation in history that’s been passed that way,” Thune said this week.
Caught between Trump and Democratic opposition, Republican senators have come up with an alternate plan to hold the floor themselves — denying Democrats the opportunity for a weekslong stage to talk. The strategy avoids the procedural pitfalls, even if the process is likely to end with a failed vote. Republicans are also expected to consider several amendments on issues that Trump has named as priorities, including an end to most mail-in balloting.
“Republicans are looking forward to this debate,” Thune said.
Hoping to appease Trump
Similar to the talking filibuster, though, the plan does have risks — mainly that it won’t satisfy Trump, who has demanded passage and threatened to hold up almost everything else in Congress.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican who has led the effort with Trump to pass the SAVE America Act and has pushed for the talking filibuster, said Thursday that it’s not yet clear how it will play out.
“I think he understands that we need to put in an aggressive effort here,” Lee said of Trump. “And a lot of that is going to have to be determined in real time as we go about it.”
The extent of Trump’s satisfaction with the process, Lee said, “will depend on whether in his view, we gave it everything we have.”
Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said the goal is to figure out how to put it on the floor and “actually achieve a result.”
“We’re working through what that means and what we need to be prepared to do,” Britt said.
Democrats ready to push back
Democrats uniformly oppose the legislation, arguing that it would disenfranchise some 20 million American voters who don’t have birth certificates or other documents readily available.
Sen. Alex Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, said his side of the aisle is organizing “to bring our arguments — and the facts — to the floor as well.”
He said it would be more accurate to call it the “Save Trump’s Ass Act,” because the only way he said Republicans can try to hold on to power in this November’s elections is to make it harder for eligible people to vote.
Padilla said the SAVE America Act “is not a voter ID bill. It is a voter suppression bill. It is a voter purging bill.”
