The Senate blocked another attempt to attach President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act to a nearly $70 billion immigration enforcement package on Thursday night, after four Republicans joined all Democrats to defeat the amendment. Lindsey Graham’s push needed 60 votes and fell short, ending the latest effort to move the voter ID and election integrity bill through the chamber.
Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis broke ranks and joined Democrats in stopping the measure, keeping the package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol separate from the election bill. For Graham, the failure was not just procedural. It was the second time Republicans had tried to graft the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility America Act onto a must-pass budget reconciliation measure and could not get the Senate to follow.
The vote mattered because Republicans have cast the SAVE America Act as a straightforward election integrity measure, while Democrats have resisted it unanimously. Graham pressed that case on the floor, arguing there was no reason to say voters should not have to show ID and warning that allowing noncitizens to vote would undermine elections. He also tied the debate to broader cultural fights, saying biological males should not play girls sports and that minors should not be allowed to transition their sex.
That argument did not move the four Republicans who crossed over. The divide is the same one that surfaced just over a month ago, when Sen. Alex Padilla said a similar proposal was defeated on a bipartisan basis. The latest failure further hardens the Senate view that the SAVE America Act has little chance of passing as written, especially with Democrats opposed and only part of the GOP willing to go along.
What remains open is whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune will try again to revive the measure, or whether Thursday night was the point at which the bill’s path in the Senate finally narrowed to almost nothing.
