How Right-Wing Activists’ Seemingly Simple Trick to Pass the SAVE Act Could Prove Disastrous

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been, for months, stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the SAVE America Act — and he’s about to get squeezed harder.

The legislation claims to address the purported problem of noncitizens voting in federal elections. It is, of course, already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and there is no evidence to suggest it is an actual issue.

Yet, President Donald Trump and a handful of far-right congressional Republicans are indicating this is the hill they plan to die on.

Thune has been saying for weeks that Republicans don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act. The bill needs 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. Republicans only have 53 seats, and so they would need a handful of Senate Democrats to join them in support of the bill.

In order to circumvent the filibuster, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who is sponsoring the bill, Trump and other far-right proponents of the SAVE Act have been calling on Thune to invoke a “talking filibuster,” also known as “standing filibuster,” as a part of their pressure campaign. The method, rarely used in modern times, would force Senate Democrats to continuously hold the Senate floor by debating the bill in question in order to delay and avoid voting on the bill itself.

Matt Glassman, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, told TPM this tactic works better in theory than in practice.

“It’s very difficult,” he said. People can talk for a long time. They can offer amendments. They can force roll call votes. It’s a grind … and when they’ve tried to grind people down like this in the past, it’s almost always failed.”

Trump on Monday claimed he is making the SAVE America Act his number one legislative priority in Congress, saying he would not sign any other bills until this is passed.

The SAVE Act “MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD.”

The bill, a version of which already passed the House in February, would require Americans to show proof of citizenship — like a U.S. passport, or a driver’s license paired with another document, such as a birth certificate or a certificate of naturalization — in order to register to vote. Women who may have changed their names after marriage would also need other documentation, like a marriage certificate, to prove their identities.

The bill would also require voters to show IDs to cast their ballots in federal elections. For mail in ballots, individuals would have to include copies of their identification documents with the ballot.

Lee — with the help of Elon Musk, assorted 2020 Big Lie activists and Trump himself — has mobilized the MAGA base to try to pressure Thune into passing the SAVE Act.

Thune’s social media accounts have been bombarded over the past couple of weeks with comments from what he recently described as a “paid influencer ecosystem.”

Glassman told TPM normally when the Senate is taking up a bill they will just file a cloture motion to end debate and if they don’t get to 60 votes they will just give up and move on from the bill. 

But technically, Glassman added, “if you don’t have 60 votes, one thing you can do to end debate is just wait till no one wants to debate anymore.”

“The rules specifically say, if no further senator seeks recognition, then the chair shall put the question. And so you can just have the debate and if no one else wants to debate, then it’s over, and you take a vote, and then a simple majority wins,” Glassman explained.

And that’s what Lee and other proponents of the SAVE Act are proposing and pushing Thune to do. 

But that far-right push completely ignores the reality of the consequences that would come with the “talking filibuster.”

In reality, this would mean Senate Democrats could and likely would be holding the floor for an extended period of time, possibly eating up months of the legislative calendar.

Senators are limited to two speeches each on any given question, but those speeches can be as long as the senators want them to be. And “every time you offer an amendment or a new motion, that creates a new opportunity for two new speeches from each senator,” Glassman said.

As Democrats tie up the floor, they can also offer unrelated amendments as a part of the process, forcing vulnerable Republicans to vote on issues they may not want to go on the record on. Or they can offer amendments on popular issues like extending Obamacare subsidies that expired at the end of 2025, possibly successfully attaching them to the bill at hand.

Taking up the floor for an extended period of time also means while this is happening the Senate will be limited in what else it can work on.

“You can go into executive session and work on a judge or a nomination. When you do that, it doesn’t disturb the SAVE America Act being on the floor for consideration on the legislative side … but you can’t do any other legislation,” Glassman told TPM.

Glassman added, often, when people think about a talking filibuster, they think about all the talking. But, in reality, it’s also a lot of voting on amendments that may need to be tabled. That means that the majority needs to have a majority of their members present.

“You only need a couple of people to filibuster an amendment, but those people doing the filibuster can suggest that there’s no quorum around,” Glassman said. “And then, the majority has to make sure they have 50 people there to produce a quorum … That’s a huge burden on the majority.”

That means while a majority of the Democrats are resting or possibly sleeping, a majority of the Republicans would have to stay around.

Thune is expected to bring the GOP bill to the floor next week amid the mounting pressure. But instead of the talking filibuster, like some of the far-right Republican figures have been pushing for, Thune will reportedly bring up the bill subject to the chamber’s regular 60-vote threshold. 

“The votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster,” Thune reiterated Tuesday. “I’m the one who has to be the clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve.”

Thune added that Republican senators will “continue to convey” the Senate math to the president and take the heat as it comes.

“It just kind of comes with the territory,” Thune told Politico. “You just roll with it, you know. It’s the times in which we live.”

Instead of a full blown talking filibuster, Thune is reportedly planning for several days of marathon sessions, which may stretch overnight, and which will force Democrats to stay on the floor and debate for an extended period of time. But at some point leadership is expected to invoke the existing Senate rules and hold a vote that requires a supermajority. That likely means that the bill will inevitably fail unless Democrats change their position. 

Republicans are also reportedly preparing amendments that would highlight the expanded vision of the bill Trump laid out earlier this week.

In a social media post and later in a speech to House Republicans, Trump called for adding even more restrictive provisions to the bill. Trump told the House Republican caucus that he wants to largely prohibit mail-in voting, with some exceptions, and also add unrelated restrictions for transgender athletes and gender-affirming treatment for minors.