Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Voter ID Isn’t Working on Senate Republicans

House Republicans’ marquee voter ID legislation has hit an immovable object: Senate Republicans.

President Donald Trump and his allies in the House have been pushing the SAVE America Act, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a bill that would require photo ID at the ballot box and proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. But while Senate Republicans say they support the policy, getting it passed over Democratic opposition would require changing Senate rules to lower the threshold of votes needed, something most Republican senators are staunchly against.

As both chambers left for recess earlier this month, even the bill’s backers in the Senate didn’t have high hopes for it. That’s despite Trump and House Republicans’ push to shift to a new standard that requires senators to be on the floor speaking to prevent debate from closing, referred to as a “talking filibuster.” They argue that could pave the way for the bill to come to a vote by a simple majority.

Under current Senate rules, the bill would need 60 votes to close debate and move to a vote, which it does not have. But House Republicans, and the MAGA base in general, think this bill is important enough to change the current longstanding filibuster process. Many of the same voices rebuked President Joe Biden in 2022 when he pushed unsuccessfully for a similar change to pass voting rights legislation.

“It’s a big change from the way we’ve done things, and around here, change doesn’t come very easily,” Sen. John Cornyn told NOTUS.

“I don’t think there are the votes to get rid of the filibuster,” Cornyn said. As for using what he called the “zombie filibuster,” using air quotes: “I think the jury’s still out.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised House Republicans that he will bring the bill up for a vote. That promise was a key part of a deal to get House conservatives on board with a government funding package in January.

Thune has also publicly backed the legislation. But he’s made it clear he’s against changing how the filibuster works, meaning the ability to move the voting bill would mean first securing the 60 votes needed to change Senate rules.

“It’s not just me not being willing to do it. There aren’t anywhere close to the votes, not even close, to nuking the filibuster,” Thune told reporters at a press conference earlier this month. “So that idea is something, although it continues to be put out there, is something that doesn’t have a future. So is there another way of getting there? We’ll see.”

House Freedom Caucus members still insist they have allies in the Senate who are in their corner. They’re focusing their ire on the filibuster and the senators who view it as untouchable.

“We encourage the restoration of the original interpretation of founders’ intent, the parliamentary process that was adopted by the founders and driven into the origins of our Congress and the Senate debate,” Rep. Clay Higgins told NOTUS.

Democrats used the so-called “nuclear option” to lower that threshold to a simple majority for judicial and executive nominees in 2013. But for legislation, the Senate still needs 60 senators willing to end debate on it, or it won’t come to a final vote. Republicans only have 53 seats, meaning they would need Democratic support. That’s an unlikely prospect on legislation like the SAVE America Act, which Democrats adamantly oppose.

Rep. Eric Burlison went as far as to criticize the Senate for, essentially, being lazy.

“It’s pathetic that our Senate is, you know, acting like a nursing home where people don’t actually have to do anything,” Burlison told NOTUS. “A filibuster is supposed to be them standing and talking, but they don’t want to do that.”

Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration nonprofit group that backs the SAVE America Act, told NOTUS that it doesn’t take a position on the filibuster, but it does want senators who oppose the legislation to have to articulate why to the public.

“Well, the path is to, you know, force people who were opposing this to come up with really rational reasons for why they would be opposing it,” Mehlman said.

But the pressure to act from the Trump base and House Republicans likely is not enough to sway Senate Republicans into altering the way they do things. Proposing to ditch the filibuster is a common tactic for a majority party frustrated about not getting enough done, said a former senior Senate aide who was in the room during attempts in previous Congresses to get rid of the filibuster, including while under Democratic control. Actually altering the filibuster, the aide said, would have ramifications Republicans do not want, and there’s no way hours of speeches from Democrats would bring them on board, either.

“It is magical thinking, right?” said the former aide of the SAVE America Act’s supporters’ push to pass it. “It’s one or the other, they either can convince Republicans to nuke the filibuster, and then Pandora’s box is open for anything with 51 votes. Or they’re trying to say that Democrats talking about the SAVE Act will convince Democrats to vote for the SAVE Act. That’s crazy.”

Veteran Senate Republicans said they are not intimidated by the House conservatives’ political messaging.

“The House doesn’t care about the Senate,” Cornyn said with a dismissive wave. “They think we should eliminate the filibuster entirely.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville is one of the most passionate supporters of the SAVE America Act in the Senate. He spoke on the floor urging his Republican colleagues to “stop worrying about getting reelected” and pass it. But just before recess, he wasn’t optimistic about its real odds of changing the filibuster to get the measure through the chamber.

“You’ve already got too many on our side that said they wouldn’t vote for it, we’re not going to get any on the Democratic side,” Tuberville told NOTUS. “So it’s not going to happen.”

Sen. Ron Johnson is another key backer who went to the White House with Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott recently to discuss the bill with the president. Trump posted on social media later that day in support of the bill’s provisions to require ID to vote, proof of citizenship to register and eliminating mail-in ballots (which the SAVE America Act does not do). Scott told NOTUS that the meeting went “great” and that Trump has “always wanted the filibuster to change.” It wasn’t the first time the president pressed Republican leaders on the Hill to move the legislation. Since, Trump and the White House have continued to post about the bill, and insist that they “only want Americans” to vote. It’s a topic he’s likely to bring up during Tuesday’s State of the Union address to both chambers of Congress.

Lee doubled down at a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Feb. 10, after which he told reporters “a lot of people had a lot of questions.”

But Johnson acknowledged that the filibuster would still be an obstacle.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it has great odds,” Johnson told NOTUS of the bill. When asked about Thune’s comment that changing the filibuster was not viable, he said, “Well, yeah, that’s gonna be a challenge.”

Because of that opposition, Sen. John Hoeven told NOTUS he’s not expecting the SAVE America Act to pass on its own. And as the midterms approach, Congress is running out of other legislative vehicles to attach it to.

But Hoeven said he wants Republicans to keep pressing for voter identification restrictions to get the public on board.

“I think we win it and get it passed, because we win the argument in the court of public opinion, and that’s ultimately stronger anyway, because then we’ve got the public with us,” Hoeven said. “I think every day we’re talking about it, we’re winning on the issue, and Democrats are losing.”