The House passes SAVE act that would require proof of citizenship to vote. Can it pass the Senate?

 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. ABC News/AP.

The House has passed the SAVE act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. ABC News. Four Democrats joined all the Republicans to pass the bill, 220 to 208. The bill had passed in the last legislative session but was not voted for in the Senate. It faces an uphill battle in the Senate as it is unlikely to pass the 60 vote threshold to beat any possible filibuster. 7 Democrats would have to support the bill in the Senate. The law would require people to prove citizenship with documents, like the Real ID law required for plane travel. Critics say the law would make it difficult for some people to vote, but Republicans say that it would prevent non-citizens from voting. The law would also require states to clean up voter rolls. Currently, the only thing preventing non-citizens from voting is a checkbox on the voter registration form that is a crime to lie about. 

My Comment:

This legislation should have been passed a week ago, but the Luna-Johnson feud delayed it until today. This law is long overdue and seems like absolute common sense to me. If you have to prove your citizenship to fly in the United States, then obviously you should have to do so vote. Our current system is basically unenforceable and there isn't any real data how many illegal votes are out there, despite whining from the Democrats. 

Unfortunately, this law is likely dead on arrival in the Senate. Though I would think that his law would be popular among basically everyone, an 80-20 issue to be sure, the Democrats are opposed to it. It's possible we could see a couple of defections from the Democrats, we did in the House of course, but I can't see that being past the 60 vote threshold this would need to pass. And I don't think it's worth it to nuke the filibuster for this one law. 

I absolutely don't buy the arguments that this would meaningfully disenfranchise anyone. We already have the Real ID requirement and that was rolled out fairly smoothly. Folks can fairly easily verify their identify and only folks that are completely incompetent are not capable of getting a birth certificate or passport. And I have no doubt that if this law were to become a law, those folks would be helped by NGO's who would be made for that exact purpose. 

The only folks that would be disenfranchised would be non-citizens that want to vote. I don't buy that non-citizens only rarely vote in federal elections. The truth is that there is no mechanism to actually find out and no real effort to determine if they have in the states where it would be a problem. Democrats have a vested interest in allowing non-citizens to vote so you really can't trust anything they say on the issue. 

But with the bill being DOA in the senate, what purpose is there in passing the bill? Well, there is always a chance that some Democrats could switch sides on the issue. The real reason though? I am guessing this is a very popular issue and it is one that Republicans can campaign on in 2026. Like I said, this seems like an 80/20 issue and one only die hard Democrats would oppose.