Thune Is Sabotaging SAVE Act While Pretending He Tried Everything
M.D. Kittle
‘It’s not enough for him to kill the SAVE America Act. Thune has to kill it while also protecting his worst RINO colleagues,’ Sean Davis said.
Stuck in a do-nothing U.S. Senate, the SAVE America Act would be safer in a Canadian euthanasia clinic.
And Senate Majority Leader John Thune has become a laughable Pawn Stars meme, effectively telling President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans, ‘The best I can do is a Screw America Act.”
He’s helpless. That’s the South Dakota Republican’s answer to the urgent call from actual conservatives warning him that the window for critical election integrity reform is quickly closing. Just call him John “Very, Very Difficult” Thune.
“There are no easy ways to do this,” Thune told reporters Tuesday when asked about the prospects of Senate passage of the voter verification legislation. “Believe me, we’ve examined all the options.”
Have they?
‘Yeah, That’s Not Going to Happen’
The Republican-controlled House passed the SAVE America Act nearly a month ago, making the Republican-led Senate prioritize the legislation that requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in U.S. elections and photo identification to cast a ballot. Per usual, the fast-moving bill hit a brick wall.
Originally promising the proposal would come up for a vote, Thune has spent the past few weeks whining about how hard — or impossible — it will be to move the measure to Trump’s desk. It was more of the same on Tuesday, despite the president’s threat that he wouldn’t sign any legislation but a Department of Homeland Security funding package until Senate GOP leadership gets its act together and passes the Save America Act.
House Republicans, the bill’s Senate shepherds, Trump, and even his old buddy Elan Musk have urged Thune to work around the legislative death warrant that is the 60-vote threshold required to move the bill, using the “talking filibuster” to do it. The strategy would force Democrats — who loathe the legislation — to hold the floor to stall a simple majority vote on the election-integrity reform. The rules would place limits on debate. Eventually the Dems would run out of steam and the vote would be called.