In the days ahead, Americans can expect two things from the Senate’s debate on the SAVE America Act: Wall-to-wall Democrat lying and RINOs squirming in their seats at the thought of working more than two days a week.
What isn’t likely is passage of an election integrity bill that most Americans support. But there is hope.
Cue Dumb and Dumber’s Lloyd Christmas optimism here.
While even the most sanguine supporters of the SAVE America Act concede that there’s little chance the bill will survive the 60-vote minimum required to end debate and move it to President Donald Trump’s desk, the Senate is at least talking. And that’s a March Madness miracle in and of itself.
‘Make This a Fistfight’
Democratic senators droning on for days seems more agony than miracle, but SAVE America Act warriors say getting to the debate stage is a step in the right direction. And extending the debate as long as possible allows for deal-making as Democrats exposed as lying obstructionists feel the heat under the spotlight.
“The reality is, it has been a very long time since the Senate has worked as a deliberative body to pass legislation,” said Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute. And the problem with newer members of the Senate GOP conference, Bovard said, is that they really haven’t seen the Senate work.
That’s thanks to the silent filibuster, which allows the minority party, with little effort, to kill legislation in the cradle. With the 60-vote threshold to end debate, the Senate’s deliberation muscles have atrophied over the past quarter century in particular. Bovard blames GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate Majority Leader in the upper house’s history, for the body’s bloat. The octogenarian Kentucky Republican, who is coming to the end of a very long and lucrative Senate career, rarely moved on legislation until he had 60 votes in his pocket — with one notable “nuclear” exception.
His successor, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., campaigned for the leader post by promising to move his conference away from the tight-fisted McConnell years. His sharpest critics charge that it’s been much of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
But Bovard gives Thune credit for parting ways with McConnell in some very important respects, particularly in moving a battle bill to the floor.
“The conservative movement asked him to make this a fistfight. He did,” said Bovard, a Capitol Hill veteran who previously served as legislative director to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and as executive director of the Senate Steering Committee. “Now the expectation has to be, ‘John Thune, you did what we asked you to do, now you need to keep fighting.’”
‘Do Your Job’
Many in the movement have pitched the “talking filibuster.” They didn’t get it. What Thune and crew have orchestrated is more of a constrained debate. Senate insiders have told The Federalist that they expect the floor to be open on the SAVE America Act for a week to 10 days, giving Democrats plenty of rope to politically hang themselves on in November’s midterms. The strategy allows Republicans to control the process, especially amendments, keeping Dems from bogging down the election integrity bill with one leftist proposal after another.
Thune wasn’t even going to go there. Up until late last week, it looked like he wasn’t interested in having any kind of a debate for what he saw as a fruitless errand. He didn’t have the numbers.
But mounting pressure from conservative senators like Mike Lee of Utah and a groundswell of discontent from the strong and unapologetic election integrity movement changed Thune’s tune. You could see them and hear them everywhere on social media. And the pressure was still on as the debate began.
“Great to meet with young leaders from the Rapid City Youth City Council and with South Dakotans from Impact Aid today,” a photo caption on the Majority Leader’s Facebook page noted Tuesday.
“Do your job and pass the SAVE act!” Ken Graves, a Thune Facebook page follower, wrote in the comment section beneath the banal post. He wasn’t alone.
Oh, the Inhumanity!
At the very least, the next several days will showcase how absolutely out of touch Democrats remain as they ask voters this year to give them another turn at the reins of congressional power.
The leftist senators were in fine form, lying late into the night.
At 9:30 p.m. ST (Swamp Time), the Dems had their top man on the case, lying all-star Sen. Adam Schiff. Mr. Russia Collusion Hoax himself took to the Senate floor to push one of the left’s biggest whoppers, that the voter verification legislation would disenfranchise more than 20 million Americans. It won’t. More than a lie, the argument at its core suggests women, black Americans, and other minorities are too stupid to obtain identification to prove they are eligible to vote in U.S. elections.
Of course, the minority will use this rare debate opportunity to bash their No. 1 political enemy, President Donald Trump. The opening day was crammed with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
No doubt the coming days will be rough for all concerned. Capitulation could come from Republicans first. Listening to Hawaii Dem Sen. Mazie Hirono fill the floor with idiocy for hours is enough to drive the most principled conservative to scream, “Uncle!” Such inhumanity should be included in the Geneva Convention.
The debate show will have a short shelf life for even the most informed American voter. Bovard said Thune to some extent is betting on the voters quickly moving on. But the conservative base has made it clear that performance without substance isn’t going to cut it this time.
For sure, Thune and company face an uphill battle verging on quixotic. But Bovard and others assert that as long as the floor remains open and the Senate remains on, there’s a chance at passage — even in the shadow of 60 votes. Republican senators just have to be willing to keep fighting, keep talking, keep negotiating.
‘At Least We Get Election Integrity’
Election law expert Hans von Spakovsky said convincing politicians who clearly want noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections to support a bill that keeps noncitizens off the voter rolls is a long shot under the current filibuster rules. Like Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., von Spakovsky sees the road to passage running through the budget reconciliation process.
“I really think one of the only ways they could get this through is if they could somehow attach it to one of those must-pass bills that Congress has, usually connected with the budget, with appropriations,” von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said on a recent edition of The Federalist Radio Hour.
But there’s a little something called the Byrd Rule — named after dead Sen. Robert Byrd, one of the Democrats’ many legendary racists — standing in the way. The rule demands that bills added to a reconciliation package have a budgetary connection.
Bovard said the SAVE America Act isn’t likely to survive parliamentarian scrutiny, but it might have a chance attached to other must-pass legislation like reauthorization of FISA.
“It really comes down to what the [Senate] parliamentarian says, and I would get the best minds I could find to try to draft a provision that would survive Byrd,” Kennedy told Fox News. “When you argue or debate with the parliamentarian, you’ve got to be ready. You can’t just walk in there and pull it out of your orifices.”
Bovard said the talking filibuster remains an option, but it has lost its appeal for even some of the more dependable conservatives in the Senate. Sen. Ron Johnson believes the only way to save the SAVE America Act is to end the filibuster. There are too many perils with the talking filibuster, the Wisconsin Republican told The Federalist in a phone interview Tuesday from the Senate.
Johnson said it comes down to two camps: Republicans who believe Democrats won’t get rid of the filibuster when they’re back in power, and Republicans who do. He’s in the latter camp. The senator said it’s important to at least get Democrats on record. If they vote against nixing the filibuster, that vote will hang over them. If they vote yes?
“Well, let’s at least we get election integrity out of it,” Johnson said.
Bovard said there is hope of a SAVE America Act law as long as the GOP is committed to continuing the process.
“… [T]he fact that Thune didn’t file cloture and end debate immediately makes this the most open and deliberative Senate floor in maybe a decade,” the senate veteran posted on X.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
