Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would consider dropping his senatorial bid if Congress would lift the filibuster in order to pass the SAVE America Act.
Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn are headed to a runoff in May after neither candidate secured a majority of the vote during Tuesday’s primary.
The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and voter ID to cast a ballot in federal elections. The legislation is overwhelmingly popular, with polling showing roughly 80 percent of Americans — including a large number of Democrats — support voter ID and citizenship requirements.
“The Save America Act is the most important bill the U.S. Senate could ever pass, and I’m committed to helping President Trump get it done,” Paxton said Thursday in a post on X. “I would consider dropping out of this race if Senate Leadership agrees to lift the filibuster and passes the SAVE America Act.”
Paxton says, despite Cornyn being a “coward” who “refused to support abolishing the filibuster to pass this bill,” and despite Paxton’s own record of loyalty to the president, “For the good of our country and for the good of passing President Trump’s agenda, I am determined to help him get this done.”
Cornyn responded to Paxton, saying “I support the bill and have encouraged Senate Republicans to get it done.”
But while Cornyn says he backs the legislation, he has also expressed reluctance to take the necessary steps to move it through the Senate, saying “there are a lot of questions,” about the feasibility of the talking filibuster.
“My understanding is it would require 51 votes to table amendments. So No. 1, you need 51 senators on the floor, and you need all of them willing to vote to table the amendment. That obviously can be problematic from a number of standpoints,” Cornyn told NBC News last week. “One, you might not be able to defeat them. And secondly, this process could go on for literally weeks, if not months, and still not be successful.”
As Matt Walsh said on X, accepting the “filibuster” as the excuse for why Republicans aren’t passing the SAVE America Act really means “you’re saying … you’re okay with Republicans in congress never passing any conservative legislation ever again.”
“Republicans aren’t getting a filibuster proof majority…So either we barrel through and advance our agenda by force, filibuster be damned, or it will never happen,” he added.
However, Texas Rep. Chip Roy explained in a letter exclusively obtained by The Federalist that the Senate does not need to nuke the filibuster entirely. Instead, Republicans could force a talking filibuster. So long as all Senate Republicans who have either co-sponsored or publicly supported the legislation show up and present a live quorum, Democrats would have to talk nonstop in order to delay a vote that would require just 51 votes to pass the legislation, rather than the typical 60-vote threshold filibuster.
“If no one is speaking and a quorum is present, the vote on the pending business happens automatically,” Roy explained. That means Democrats would have to talk nonstop to prevent a vote.
“If Republicans stick together, and the minority exhaust their opportunities to speak in opposition or give up, a final vote on passage of the bill occurs automatically at a majority threshold,” Roy explained.
Paxton is clearly willing to sacrifice his own Senate campaign if that’s what it takes to get the SAVE America Act across the finish line. Meanwhile, Cornyn is already in the Senate — and apparently still hung up on why it cannot be done.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
