Republican Venality

Q: Can you give one example of fraud in a previous election that the SAVE America Act would stop?
MIKE JOHNSON: Look, we're not gonna litigate all that

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 17, 2026 at 10:48 AM

Not sure who the "reporter" is here, but someone should probably tell him
1) that it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections and
2) that violations of that law are already vanishingly rare.

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— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) March 17, 2026 at 2:58 PM

Not looking good for the GOP…
Per Politico, “Senate Republicans struggle to make their voting fight uncomfortable for Democrats”:

Senate Republicans want to use their party-line elections bill as a cudgel against Democrats. They need to stop sparring with each other first…

The chances the push will succeed in passing the bill, which Democrats uniformly oppose, are miniscule. And it’s not at all clear that spending two weeks on the bill will be enough to quell what has been an intense GOP-on-GOP pressure campaign that has sucked up much of the focus in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s vote.

“We’ll find out, you know?” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said when asked if he knew if it would be enough to satisfy Trump, who has repeatedly urged Republicans to skirt the 60-vote filibuster to pass the bill. “What I promised from the very beginning is we’ll get it up and we will have a vote. I can’t guarantee the result.”

He added that Trump and others also “want us to nuke the legislative filibuster in order to do it, and that’s also something I’ve been very clear about — there just aren’t the votes.”

Spending more than a week of floor time on a bill that is all but guaranteed to fail isn’t typically how the Senate operates. Usually, to show legislation supported by their own party can’t clear the chamber’s supermajority threshold, Senate leaders quickly move to end debate and prove it can’t get 60 votes.

But Senate Republicans are under intense pressure to show that they are fighting Democrats for “election integrity” — an issue they believe polls well for them but appears to be causing little heartburn for Democrats so far. Some believe forcing a “talking filibuster” where opponents have to hold the floor indefinitely will force the opposition to cave.

Democratic senators shrugged off the strategy Tuesday, vowing that no matter how long Republicans drag out the debate, there is no way the election bill can garner 60 Senate votes.

“If MAGA Republicans want to bog down the Senate over a debate on voter suppression, Democrats are ready. We’re ready to be here all day, all night, as long as it takes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “Senate Democrats will never let this rotten bill move through this body.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview that Democrats will “spend the next two weeks painting them as totally out of touch.”

The Senate is expected to stay in session late into the night and into the weekend as senators hammer each other over the bill. Thune has been careful not to outline a date certain for the end of the debate, and both parties expect the process to eat up much of the next week and a half…

 
The Hill, “GOP debate on SAVE America Act morphs into ‘circular firing squad’ “:

… Trump and his allies are warning that if Senate Republicans don’t pull out all the stops to pass the bill, they will face the wrath of MAGA voters.

That threat is angering Senate GOP critics of the bill, who think it’s poorly drafted and has no chance of passing. They say threats to punish them for not rallying behind the bill will only backfire as the party heads into a midterm election facing strong political headwinds, such as Trump’s low approval ratings and voter dissatisfaction over inflation and the economy.

“Circular firing squads never end well,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who says the bill needs more work and has questioned the endgame for passing the bill when Democrats are vowing to block it with a filibuster.

Tillis and several other Republican senators were outraged by Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) post on social media this week suggesting that Republican colleagues who don’t support forcing a talking filibuster to help pass the SAVE America Act should be replaced.

“To me, it’s disingenuous to say we’re going to go out here and we’re going to bring the bill, make [its virtues] apparent to the American people, and then he’s out there the night before we’re about to go on the bill and threatening primaries for people who don’t get on board for something he knows he doesn’t have support for,” Tillis said.

Trump added to the pressure Tuesday when he declared on Truth Social that the SAVE America Act is “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress and America itself” and vowed to withhold support from any Republican who opposes it…

(Reminder: Tillis is retiring, and Mike Lee is an idiot.)

 
For those who missed my late-night post, some recapping: