Trump delays housing bill signing to push the SAVE America Act.
Senate Republicans lack votes needed to advance election legislation.
Critics warn voter ID proposal could disenfranchise eligible citizens.
President Donald Trump cancelled his Wednesday plan to sign a bipartisan affordable housing bill to pressure Republicans into passing the SAVE America Act, Reuters reported. The president planned to attend a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Wednesday afternoon to lobby for the voting measure.
The SAVE America Act requires voters to present a photo ID in federal elections and provide proof of U.S. citizenship to register. The legislation also compels states to hand over their voter registration rolls to the federal government.
"Today's Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency," Trump wrote in a social media post. Lawmakers said the housing bill can become law anyway if left unsigned for 10 days, and they believe they have enough votes to override a potential presidential veto.
The Legislative Reality
Senate Republicans face significant hurdles. Republicans control 53 of the Senate's 100 seats but lack the 60 votes required to clear the chamber's filibuster threshold. Consequently, the voting measure or its provisions have failed five times in Senate votes since mid-March.
Senate Republicans rejected Trump's demands to eliminate the filibuster or attach the bill to must-pass legislation. They also refused to fire a Senate official who blocked the measure from a spending package. "Those are just hard realities. And I think people at some point have to come to grips with that," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said to reporters.
Backers of the bill maintain hope. "For every bill up here, when it starts, there's not enough votes," said Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican. "We're going to have a nice conversation to see if we can figure out how to get this across the finish line."
Critics and Senate Democrats argue the legislation targets a non-existent problem of non-citizen voting. They warn it would disenfranchise citizens lacking passports or birth certificates. "Every minute we spend on it, we're not spending on something that can get my colleagues re-elected," Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said to reporters.
