The Liberty Daily 
(The Epoch Times)—Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on March 10 that he’s counted votes in the upper chamber and concluded there aren’t enough to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act by employing the so-called talking filibuster.
“We don’t have the votes either to proceed, get on a talking filibuster, nor to sustain one if we got on it. But that’s just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Thune told reporters in Washington.
Asked if the president understands that, Thune added: “We’ve conveyed that to him, but we’ll continue to make that argument because I think it’s important that everybody understand that this really is about. It’s about the votes, it’s about the math, and I’m—for better or worse—I’m the one who has to be the clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve here.”
Trump is urging Republicans to approve the SAVE Act, which requires voter applicants to provide documents such as a passport proving U.S. citizenship. The president has said he will not sign any other bills until Congress approves the legislation.
The House of Representatives passed the bill in February, and it has been in the Senate since.
Trump wrote in a March 8 post on Truth Social that Republicans should use the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE Act.
The filibuster means the Senate can generally only pass bills with at least 60 votes. Republicans only hold 53 seats, and Democrats oppose the SAVE Act.
The talking filibuster is a tactic the GOP could employ to force Democrats to spend time on the Senate floor protesting the bill, culminating in a vote that would require only a simple majority to pass.
Thune said that he will bring the legislation up for a vote.
“We’ll give the Democrats the opportunity to cast their vote on whether or not they think noncitizens ought to vote in elections. And so that debate will happen,” Thune said. “But like I said, I can guarantee the debate. I can guarantee a vote. I just can’t guarantee an outcome.”
Thune also said he would be “very surprised” if Democrats vote for the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters in a separate briefing on Capitol Hill that the SAVE Act would let federal immigration officers remove tens of millions of people from voter registration lists and not inform them they had been removed until they showed up to vote on Election Day.
“This is a bill that destroys the country. And it is not about showing ID when you show up to vote. It’s about the voter registration rolls, destroying them, purging them, not letting people know,” Schumer said.
“It’s an outrageous bill … and we’re going to fight it tooth and nail,” he added later.
Democrats broadly oppose the measure, saying the requirement to present documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote could create new barriers for millions of eligible voters.
