Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., detailed his rationale for refusing to support the SAVE Act in its current form despite acknowledging that voter ID requirements are not "unreasonable."
"It's needlessly complicated," Fetterman said Monday on "Mornings with Maria."
The Pennsylvania Democrat stressed that while he supports requiring identification to vote, he believes the House-passed bill goes further than necessary and fails to account for the security of existing voting systems, particularly mail-in ballots.
"I have said it's not Jim Crow, and it's not extreme things, but mail-in voting is absolutely secure," Fetterman said. "Some of the best examples in the country are red states like Florida and Ohio."
Fetterman pointed to Florida as a model, noting the state passed legislation similar in spirit to the SAVE Act while also affirming the integrity of mail-in voting.
"I would remind people watching [that] Florida just passed the essential version of the SAVE America Act, but they also said mail-in voting is absolutely secure, and that's going to be part of us going forward," he said.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox Business' Taylor Penley.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, accused Democrats of weaving a "false narrative" about President Donald Trump's SAVE America Act on Monday.
Lee spoke with Fox News' Host Laura Ingraham on ‘The Ingraham Angle" Monday night as the Senate prepared to battle in its first test vote on the legislation. Ingraham asked Lee about Democratic accusations that the law would allow ICE to remove "elligible voters" from U.S. voter rolls.
"Under no plausible interpretation of this bill would this bill after becoming law would require that result, or even allow it or even contemplate it even remotely," Lee said.
"Look, this is paranoid fantasy mingled with fearmongering, and we can't allow the Democrats to continue to weave this false narrative," he continued, adding that Democrats are "about as trustworthy on this issue as chuck Schumer's cheeseburgers."
Senate Republicans are gearing up for a floor fight this week over doomed Trump-backed voter ID legislation.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to launch the GOP’s floor strategy for the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act on Tuesday afternoon.
It won’t be done through the talking filibuster, despite pressure from President Donald Trump and a fervent ecosystem of conservative influencers to do so. That’s because there is not enough support among Republicans to follow through with the move.
"It's about the math," Thune said. "And I'm, for better or worse, the one who has to be a clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve here. And so we'll continue to convey that. And I think that we're going to have the fight on the floor. We’re going to vote on this."
Republicans' plan is to put Senate Democrats on record for voting down the bill. And Senate Democrats are primed to oblige.
"Democrats will not let Donald Trump ram this bill through the Senate. Not this week, not ever," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on a call with reporters over the weekend. "And Democrats are going to make sure the American people have their chance to deliver their verdict at the elections this fall."
Part of the issue among Republicans, outside the staggering amount of floor time it would take up, is that the GOP isn't unified to block Democratic amendments that could drastically alter the bill if they went the route of the talking filibuster.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who is one of the key voices pushing for the SAVE America Act in the Senate, acknowledged that Republicans "don’t have the votes for the talking filibuster right now."
"We just got to, you know, we got to look at every way we can try to pass it," Scott said.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Alex Miller and Elzabeth Elkind.
{{#rendered}}You’ll hear volumes from congressional Republicans about the importance of passing the SAVE America Act in the coming days. The bill requires proof of citizenship to vote.
"We need to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat in America," said Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio.
"The SAVE America Act is an important bill," said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., on Fox News. "So we’ve got to figure out how to get it passed."
And that is the conundrum facing Senate Republicans — figuring out how to get it passed.
The SAVE America Act is the touchstone of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. In fact, the president warned he wouldn’t sign any other bill into law — except perhaps a DHS funding measure — until Congress aligns with his demands.
Republicans agree on the importance of the SAVE America Act, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. is promising everything but passage.
"I will be bringing the SAVE America Act to the floor, and we will be having a full and robust debate," said Thune.
That’s because Republicans can’t break a Democratic filibuster.
"This is one of the worst things we've seen in America in a very long time," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
"The real reason this president wants this bill to pass is to reduce the number of people voting in the November election," said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. Republicans only have 53 votes in the Senate. So some Republicans advocate parliamentary ballistics to obliterate the filibuster.
"I would nuke the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act," said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News Chad Pergram.
President Donald Trump's SAVE America Act is up for a do-or-die test vote in the Senate on Tuesday.
The vote, which would launch further Senate debate if successful, requires just a simple majority.
There remain a number of Republican holdouts on the legislation, including Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and others.
The Senate will hold the vote at 2:15 ET, and Vice President JD Vance may be called upon to cast a tie-breaking vote.
Republicans currently hold a 53-seat majority, meaning they can only afford three GOP defectors.
Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
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