Posted on 02/17/2026 12:15:37 PM PST by Twotone
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) sent a letter Monday to senators laying out a simple way the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act can be brought to the floor for a vote without “nuking” the filibuster.
The SAVE Act would require both documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID to cast a ballot. The legislation passed the House, but is stalling in the Senate, despite 50 Republican senators who co-sponsor or support the SAVE America Act, according to Roy’s letter, which was exclusively obtained by The Federalist. As Roy pointed out, Senator Majority Leader John Thune can “put the bill on the floor any time.”
Roy, preempting talking points from some Republicans, lays out how Thune could successfully bring the SAVE America Act to a vote without nuking the filibuster.
Roy explains that as long as all Senate Republicans who have either co-sponsored or publicly supported the legislation show up and presents a live quorum, it would force Democrats to talk non-stop to delay a vote at just 51 votes, rather than the typical 60-threshold filibuster.
“The commonly accepted 60-vote ‘filibuster’ threshold to ‘shut off debate’ is not the ONLY way to force a vote in the Senate – the majority can force opposing Senators to speak,” Roy said.
Under current Senate rules, according to Roy, if there is a quorum, the Senate must either be voting or a member must be speaking.
“In other words, if no one is speaking and a quorum is present, the vote on the pending business happens automatically,” Roy explained.
Roy said Thune could “proceed to the SAVE America Act with a simple majority vote … as soon as he chooses. Under current practice, he would call it up, debate it for a while, and proceed to a 60-vote cloture vote to ‘shut off debate.’ It would fail, Republicans would shrug and say ‘we tried, we need to elect more Republicans.'”
“This is what we call a ‘fake’ or ‘zombie’ filibuster,” Roy said. “There’s no real speaking, just a failure to get 60 votes to ‘shut off debate’ and then default to a ‘quorum call’ (no business) rather than having 51 Senators show up to call the question at a simple majority.”
But as Roy points out, there are existing Senate rules that allow a present majority — 51 senators — to seek a vote on the SAVE Act. Democrats, the minority, would try to run a filibuster to stop the vote. But as Roy notes, “If Republicans stick together, and the minority exhaust their opportunities to speak in opposition or give up, a final vote on passage of the bill occurs automatically at a majority threshold.”
Roy said Republicans would need to be “disciplined” and table each amendment and enforce the “2-speech rule” in order to force an actual vote on the SAVE America Act.
“We can move the legislation under CURRENT rules without ‘nuking’ the filibuster,” Roy pointed out.
The SAVE America Act passed the House 218-213, with Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas voting to pass the legislation alongside his Republican colleagues. Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman has also come out in support of the legislation.
As The Federalist’s Matt Kittle pointed out, the proposal within the legislation is wildly popular, and forcing a vote in the Senate would force legislators to “explain to the 80 percent of Americans (including a significant number of Democrats) who support citizenship and ID requirements, why they so vehemently oppose basic election integrity.”
Noncitizen voting is already illegal, though the law lacks any enforcement mechanism. The SAVE America Act would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Currently, prospective voters must check a tiny square box on a federal registration form attesting under penalty of perjury they are a citizen, in other words, the honor system.
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All it takes is Thune. Best we lean on him until his phones melt.
What is Thune’s game?
Cui bono?
The ball really is in the court of the Senate pubbies.
Force the donkey party to stand and deliver.
Dems got the highly unpopular “unaffordable care act” passed with barely a margin.
Republicans can learn a few lessons from them.
ILLEGALS VOTING WENT INTO OVER DRIVE WHEN DRIVER’S LICENCES WERE GRANTED-—ATTACHED TO MOTOR VOTER LAWS.
I think I see the problem
Chip Roy is an asshat
“ ILLEGALS VOTING WENT INTO OVER DRIVE WHEN DRIVER’S LICENCES WERE GRANTED-—ATTACHED TO MOTOR VOTER LAWS”
***********************************************************************
Non-citizens voting is certainly somewhat of a problem but the main benefit of mandatory Voter ID would be suppression of VOTER IMPERSONATION VOTING. In my state of Maryland that is a MASSIVE problem.
Thune wants to play the role of gentlemanly loser.
Thune is a deep stater. Just because he put his name on the bill, he doesn’t want it to become law, no DC RINO wants it to become law.
He is Deep State
The U.S. Senate is a den of vipers.
RINOs like Susan Collins will play a game of publicly saying she supports the bill while declining to ride out the filibuster by making the opposition actual speak in the well of the Senate. It’s a straddle, a way to say “I am for it”, while letting the bill fail.
On this issue?
Can we please stop using the phrase “Nuking the Filibuster”?
If the requirement (going forward) is to speak, aka, filibuster, then the filibuster is not being nuked. The definition of the word “filibuster” is actually “prolonged speech.”
The free-gimme on 60 votes is what goes away. That isn’t “the filibuster” anyways. It should not be called the filibuster, we might as well call it “an aardvark” because it isn’t the filibuster.
Words matter.
This law as drafted is unconstitutional, and will prove impossible to enforce if it somehow passes.
Chip Roy is correct.
Today is the first day of early voting in the primaries here in Texas. I voted against Cornhole for and A-hole Chipsh?t Roy.
Chip Roy is an asshat
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He is, and this is one more example of his grandstanding. He could get a lot more done by working with his own party, rather than slinging crap from the sideline.
“This law as drafted is unconstitutional, and will prove impossible to enforce if it somehow passes.”
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Exactly. If it manages to pass, people here will be spitting mad when the first court it hits shuts it down.
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