Thune throws cold water on filibuster change in push for voter-ID bill

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R.S.D.) on Tuesday thwarted a push by President Donald Trump and his allies to change the Senate’s filibuster rule to speed up passage of controversial voter ID legislation.

SAVE America Act, The law, introduced in January, would require voters to prove their citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and require certain types of photo identification to vote. The measure is scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives this week but faces a tough climb in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to filibuster to block legislation they say could disenfranchise millions of Americans. Due to the filibuster rule, bills require 60 votes to pass in the Senate.

Advocates of voter ID legislation are calling for changes to the chamber’s rules.

“There is no vote to nuke the filibuster, not even close,” Thune said at a press conference after a meeting of Senate Republicans on Tuesday. he said. “So this idea is an important thing, although it keeps being put forward… It has no future.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who is leading the push for the bill in the Senate, has called for eliminating the so-called “zombie filibuster” and restoring an earlier form of the rule that required objecting members to be physically on the floor and speak to delay legislation.

“Remember, a talking filibuster is best understood as a filibuster. Historically, senators had to talk to do the filibuster. You can’t reap the benefits of the filibuster without doing the work of the filibuster, and that means talking,” Lee said in a video sent to x on Tuesday.

The “talking” filibuster, made famous by the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” has not been practiced regularly since the Senate rule change. 1970sEven some supporters of the law have reservations about returning to the old ways.

“I think getting rid of fraud is going to lead to more acrimony, more rapid shifts from right to left, and it’s not going to be good for the country,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has said he supports the voter ID bill, told reporters Tuesday. “I think the default position is freedom and most laws take away your freedom. So I’m not a big fan of making it easier to pass laws.”

Filibuster reform aside, the voter ID proposal is controversial and faces an uncertain fate in both chambers, with Trump last week calling for the federal government to take control of elections from the states.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a GOP centrist, announced Tuesday in X that she does not support the legislation.

“Not only does the U.S. Constitution expressly give states the authority to regulate the ‘times, places, and manner’ of the conduct of federal elections, but one-dimensional powers from Washington, D.C., rarely work in places like Alaska.” Here’s what Murkowski said:

A. similar version of the bill— introduced last year by Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, but did not include voter ID requirements at the polls — left the parliament In April, all four Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in support.

Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, a Democrat, said Monday that this iteration of the bill is “not even close to the same” as the bill he previously supported.

“One requires you to prove your citizenship to register to vote. The other is like IDs at the ballot box. That’s not a trivial difference,” Golden said. “It looks like it has zero chance of going anywhere in the Senate… They’re just sending a message to themselves.”