Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is still dragging his feet on using the “talking filibuster” tactic to get the SAVE America Act passed, arguing that there is not a “unified Republican conference” to do so and that it would be “very hard” to end the ongoing partial government shutdown.
Even after President Donald Trump directly called on him to enact the filibuster to get the voter ID bill, also called the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, through the Senate during last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Thune has resisted doing so.
When asked by reporters on Thursday if he was going to force a “talking filibuster” to make Senate Democrats debate the voter ID bill on the floor so Republicans can bypass the 60-vote cloture threshold and pass it, Thune said, “If we were to go down that path, it’s very hard to pivot and get back to open up the government.”
“I frankly think we ought to — we need to make sure that DHS, TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, all those agencies, are funded,” he explained, listing off agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that remain unfunded while Democrats fight to restrict Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“And so I’m hopeful there will be a breakthrough… that’s going to require some, you know, obviously cooperation from the Democrats, who we haven’t seen a lot of so far,” Thune continued.
There is also a bipartisan housing bill awaiting Senate approval.
“That’s harder to do once you’re in the throes of a talking filibuster,” the majority leader said. “The talking filibuster issue is one on which there is not, certainly, a unified Republican conference — and there would have to be, if you go down that path.”
Explaining that he would have to keep 50 Republicans in agreement on killing every single Democrat amendment, he claimed that “there’s just not […] support for doing that at this point.”
When directly asked if the SAVE America act will be subject to a 60-vote cloture threshold, Thune confirmed to reporters that it is “obviously” a “very real possibility.”
Thune has remained consistently skeptical of using the “talking filibuster” tactic to make Democrats stand and debate, warning it could allow the minority party to force votes on some of their own bills.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Punchbowl News last week that he is one of the Republicans who would vote against a motion to proceed to the act without a clear way to pass it without nuking the filibuster.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a sponsor of the SAVE America Act, has repeatedly argued that merely forcing a vote on the bill is not good enough, and that a talking filibuster is needed to pass it:
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
