President Donald Trump’s signature election bill is effectively finished on Capitol Hill, according to one of his own party’s senators, and the warning comes with unusually blunt language.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) says the SAVE America Act, long promoted by Trump as a cornerstone of his election agenda, is “dead,” arguing there is no realistic path to pass and implement the sweeping voting overhaul before the midterms.
“Unless they do the work to get to the 60 votes, they know it’s dead, and so all this is theater,” Tillis told The News & Observer, dismissing the ongoing push as little more than political performance.
The legislation, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, would require people registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship and require voters to present photo identification at the polls.
But Tillis said the legislation has drifted from serious policymaking into political performance.
The North Carolina Republican pointed to his own state’s experience implementing voter ID requirements, saying it took roughly a year to put the system in place even with planning and funding.
“Honestly, here in North Carolina… it took a year to get everything in place with adequate funding,” Tillis said.
He argued there is no realistic path to rolling out similar changes nationwide before Americans head to the polls on Nov. 3.
“Do you honestly believe that we can have this thing up in 50 states?” Tillis asked. “There’s no funding. There’s no specific implementation instructions.”
He went even further: “It’s become a joke… how anybody can look the American voters in the eye and suggest that it could be implemented in time without just causing a huge impact on the elections, and ironically undermine the confidence of it,” he said.
Tillis has already put his vote where his criticism is.
He joined Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell in opposing an amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham that would have attached Trump’s SAVE America Act to a budget reconciliation package. The amendment not only failed to reach the 60 votes required for adoption, it couldn’t even secure a simple majority.
Even if Republican leaders wanted to revive the proposal, another hurdle remains.
The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the SAVE America Act cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process because its sweeping election policy changes have only a limited connection to federal spending. That means Republicans would need 60 votes in the Senate, a threshold they are nowhere close to reaching, with no Democratic support for the bill.
