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Federalist Radio Hour
The Truth About The Senate’s Stalling Of The SAVE America Act
00:51:04
On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute’s director for election integrity and American Justice Campaign director, joins Federalist Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to give an in-depth look at...
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- [00:19]
A
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio the federalist.com follow us on XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course, to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute's director of Election Integrity and American justice campaign director. What's next for the SAVE Act? Now facing a perilous journey in the US Senate. That's what we're talking about. And Thomas, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
- [01:10]
B
Thanks for having me, Matt. Great to be here.
- [01:12]
A
Let me begin with this. You know your way around this Congress, particularly the House, and you know the power players in the Senate. Talk me down here, Thomas. I don't have a lot of faith in the republic controlled Senate that the Save America act or its predecessor, the SAVE act, will actually come to a vote. But what's your thinking at this point?
- [01:41]
B
Well, I think you have been through enough and we've all seen enough to have some skepticism when it comes to any kind of 60 vote threshold in the Senate. I know Republicans get a lot of blame, whether they have 53 or 52 or 51, depending on who you call a Republican, but obviously not with that magic number 60. So what's going to happen with a bill in the Senate, particularly the Save America act, which did pass the house 218 to 213 a couple days ago with all Republicans and one lone Democrat, Henry Coyer from Texas. But there is a path that I think most people know to get a bill through the Senate without 60 votes, to have 50 plus the vice president's vote or 51, a simple majority, and that's to break the filibuster. Now, I don't think anyone on the Republican side is talking about breaking the filibuster. There's another procedural path that's being talked about to get this to a vote. And that's what they call the standing filibuster. And it's effectively what you can imagine it is, which is making the Democrats talk for so long and stand for so long and defend their positions for so long weeks on end that eventually it is able to be brought to a vote and a simple majority vote without breaking what we all know is the filibuster, which was broken for things like judicial nominations, where A Supreme Court nominee could be sent through and nominated and approved by the Senate with a simple majority vote. So that is the basic, believe it or not, explanation of the path forward. But I'm happy to go deeper into.
- [03:16]
A
Detail, and we will indeed. But let's talk about what this is all about, really. At the end of the day, this is about election security. This is about election integrity. These are basic election integrity bills. They ask what the majority of Americans want to see, and the vast majority of Americans at that, they ask that those who want to vote in our elections verify that they are a US Citizen to vote in federal elections when they register. It also includes voter ID at the polls. Again, this is an 8020 issue. Of course, the Democrats, with Chuck Schumer in the Senate as the minority leader, calling this hyperbolic terms to say the very least, that this is Jim Crow 2.0 and all of these sorts of things. And of course, they have their good friends in the accomplice media to push this very false equivalency. But how much, how much damage can Democrats actually do to this bill? Have they done to this bill during House debate? And how much damage have they done to themselves during this debate?
- [04:37]
B
Those are all great questions. I want to bring everyone back a few years to when Georgia passed their election territory bill, SB202, and that bill was called the same thing, Jim Crow 2.0. Then President Biden famously called it Jim Eagle because an eagle is better than a crow. And that's right.
- [04:55]
A
That's right.
- [04:56]
B
Major League Baseball's All Star Game was actually moved from Atlanta to Colorado, a state that actually has more, quote, unquote, restrictive voting laws than even Georgia was trying to put forward. But obviously logic and reason and truth don't matter to the other side. So the harm has shown to be effective. And they can call something racist, they can call senators racist. And especially, especially in a midterm year where many of these people, these senators are on the ballot, those attacks that to me are tried and old. They're still effective now through a standing filibuster for, for two, three, four, you know, six weeks even. Could that messaging just fall onto deaf ears eventually with American people? That's, that's my guess. But we really have to think about is the Senate willing to do that? And it goes to your original question of are Republicans willing to, for what you said, an 8020 issue. I think CNN even put out a poll this past week where they asked respondents should citizenship be verified at voter registration, and that was an 83%. Yes, it's crazy to me that 17% of people say no, you don't have to be an American citizen to vote in American elections. But the fact of the matter is I believe it was something in the 90% range for Republicans said yes and even 70 something percent of Democrats said yes. That's the case. And to your point as well about photo voter id, because those are the two issues that we're talking about here is first verifying that you're an American citizen when you register to vote and then when you do go to actually vote, that you present a photo voter id, something that even the most third world countries have these basic guidelines, these basic standards that are overwhelmingly popular with the American people. So it doesn't quite make sense to me why the Democrats would stake their claim on this. But then again, we're about to go into what, a third shutdown in the past six months. And they know that for the most part people will blame Republicans no matter what happens. Because look, it is true that the Republicans have the House, the Senate and the White House. But what I think people don't Understand is that 60 vote threshold that we Republicans, if you're a Republican, you say we, we need Democrat help here with so many. And we have what some Republican senators who don't want to name names, but maybe they hail from Alaska or Maine or Kentucky who are not going to side with their own party on these things. So it's a very difficult hoop to jump through. And Senate Majority Leader Thune has promised, I know in these negotiations with the second shutdown that just ended, what, last week or a couple weeks ago with the White House and specifically with the House Freedom Caucus said, hey, we will bring this to a floor vote. And I think the senators are, if there's one thing that senators don't like to do and that's actually work and be on the floor and do what they're elected to do. So that is. We're all in that section.
- [08:07]
A
Yeah, yeah. You know, we'll get to those three unnamed senators coming up in just a bit. You know, I'd have to, but you know, you talk about 17% of Americans are against verification of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. I believe that just about every Democrat member of Congress is in that category. Why, why, why are these Democrats? And again, as a mediocre attorney, and I'm not an attorney, but I, I, I know the answer to this question. I've been covering this election integrity issue for a very long time now. Why is it that the Democrats don't want this basic election integrity security measure.
- [08:57]
B
I think you and I would come up with the same response to this. I think what anyone who spends a few seconds thinking about the last four years of President Biden's administration and what now President Trump has fought for the last year or so is with the illegal immigration, the border crossings, and depending on the number that you look at, you have 10, 15, 20 million illegal border crossings during that four years. And if you had to guess, the logical conclusion is that the Democrats to stay in power and we could get into a redistricting, fire, gerrymandering, you know, discussion if we want. But you see that for years, whether we're talking about Massachusetts and the official origin of Governor Gerry at the time, gerrymander, of making the districts the way they were in Massachusetts to Illinois now, and this fight that has been so comfortable for the Democrats to squeeze out Republicans from, from their seats is they care about one thing and it's power and staying in power. They don't have the, they don't have the interests of the American people at part, it's to stay in power as long as they can. And so to directly answer your question of why would all those Democrat senators be in that 17% of this overwhelmingly popular issue, to verify citizenship at registration, to have a photo voter id. It's all about power.
- [10:26]
A
Yeah, it really is. And it's the consolidation of power that they've been on. And, and, and absolutely there is a desperation among Democrats. They're fired up. You know, they, they've hated Trump, lived with the affliction of Trump derangement syndrome for, for a very long time now, the better part of the last decade in this country. And so I, I fear that they are willing to do just about anything, and I mean anything to reduce Donald Trump's power in the executive branch. Obviously, they've, they've done a number of things already, but if they can control the House, that is, they've already said it. I mean, there's, there's no secret to this. They're going to impeach him for whatever reason they, you know, they can come up with. If they do have the Senate, well, that makes things even more complicated. But at the end of the day, you're absolutely right. This is about power. But will the American people ultimately see through that, particularly with this issue?
- [11:41]
B
That's an excellent question. It's what we here at the American First Policy Institute are fighting every day to help educate voters in the public of what happens when one side gets elected. I Mean, look at Virginia just this past November, a few months ago, where now Governor Spanberger, who came from the House under Hakeem Jeffries leadership on the Democrat side gets elected and she's seen as a moderate mom, not a D.C. insider, former CIA agent who's going to weaponize the government, weaponize the political process against her political opponents. Which is what you hit on with what exactly House Democrats and God forbid a Democratic Senate would do for the last, for the remaining two years of a President Trump administration. They wield the power and then immediately will go against everything that they say, for example that Texas is doing for their redistricting which by the way started because the Biden DOJ had sued Texas to change their maps. And so Texas changed the maps and yet that is used as the baseline for why California needed to Prop past Prop 50 to completely throw away their constitutional process to have what, a 49 to nothing map. And now in Virginia you're seeing the Governor Spanberg, her first signature on a bill to go from moderate Democrat to hey, I'm going to pass a bill that says we want a 10 to 1 map and forget what the Constitution of Virginia says where two sessions need to pass to change the map or by a 66% yes vote by the Virginia people just a few years ago to say we're going to have a commission to decide these issues, not the legislature, not the governor. So it is scary to think what could happen if the American voter does not see that when the left gets power, no matter what they're saying on the campaign trail, they will cause even more chaos than what you think is happening today and more instability than what you see today. And to completely weaponize the government, to completely shut it down with subpoena after subpoena, impeachment after impeachment, not just of the president but of even his cabinet.
- [14:02]
C
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- [14:37]
A
Well, that's, that's interesting to me, you know, on, on all fronts. And you know, we've seen this play out everywhere across this country from, from Democrats over the, the last year plus of Trump 2.0. But what about the center right? They've got to have something to believe in to go out and vote, particularly those all important low propensity voters, the voters that came out during 2024 to vote for President Trump. The, the voters who rarely come out, if at all. If, if the Republican controlled US Senate cannot get this big basic election integrity bill passed, what do you think that will mean to the 2026 midterm elections for Republicans?
- [15:32]
B
I think people come down one of two ways when it comes to the effectiveness of the Congress. I would argue that if you like things not shifting dramatically, then you can vote Republican because you know that there's going to be infighting, they're not actually going to get too much through. That's the pessimistic view. I, the optimistic view is, hey, we have an opportunity here to take an issue that is overwhelmingly popular with Americans and we can prove to them that we could be effective leaders even without a 60 vote threshold. And now you've seen the House pass the SAVE Act a number of times and now the Save America act, which the SAVE act is the voter registration piece where you prove citizenship at voter registration. And then the Save America act was the same piece of the voter registration but also added that photo voter ID part. That's what recently passed this past week. And so you have a president who's willing to sign it and a House that had already passed it. So it's up to the Senate. But I think the greater issue here when you talk about those low propensity voters is they do have to have something to vote for. And you hit on that exact point, which is you can't just run a campaign and talk the whole year about how scary it could be if the other side gets power, how they could wield power against you and us and weaponize the government. People have to have something to vote for. And the president did such a great job in 2016 and again even in 20 and this past year, in 24 to point to accomplishments and what he's going to do. And so the Senate needs to get on board with the President's agenda here. And the president, I think needs to do a really good job here in about a week and a half during the State of the Union and throughout the rest of campaign season. We're hitting primary season very soon, just a few short weeks before Texas and North Carolina have their primaries. But those domestic issues that those middle of the road voters or those low propensity voters care about, which is prices, the economy, safety. It is so great that the president has all those foreign policy wins. But if you ask that mother of four who's buying eggs, who's taking her kids to school, who is not sure if she can go out at night and be safe, if she cares as much about Ukraine or Israel as she does about those issues I just mentioned domestically, the answer is no. And so I think the president has done an amazing job foreign and domestic and that focus has to be on those domestic issues for the next few months. And so if I was going to give any advice to anyone in the administration is pump out your wins. You have wins, you've accomplished more in just over a year than the previous administration could ever think to have accomplished in four years. And so that is, I think the strategy going forward is that education, education, where you hit on it, look, Hollywood, the media, the education system, everything that is consumed by the American person is left leaning and we have to break through somehow to get the truth across the line.
- [18:35]
A
As we talk today on that domestic front, we note that inflation is at its lowest level in five years. That's extremely meaningful because we spent four years of Bidenflation and I think those issues hopefully begin to translate. But there are facts and then there are, there is the narrative and those are always often at least two different things. Our guest today is Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute's director of election integrity and American justice campaign director. We're talking about election integrity and a basic key election integrity measure that now finds its way in the U. S. Senate. Whether the Save America act will survive that Senate is yet to be seen. So let's, Thomas, let's talk about the mechanics of it. You talked about the standing or the, the talking portion of all of this when we, we talk about the, the filibuster and trying to get around that. So the talking or standing filibuster would make Democrats speak on this issue for how long do you think? Because I think that is a big concern certainly for some of the Republicans, if you will, that we talked about a while ago and we'll go into that in just a bit. But how long do you think, think a talking filibuster would last and what are, what are the rules to it all?
- [20:17]
B
Yeah, great question, Matt. Let's dive in a little bit. I'll try to give a top line first, which is you force the other side to speak and they get two speeches per legislative day per senator on each of the Issues you table, meaning you set aside all motions, you don't let the other side adjourn. And once those speeches are exhausted, you can then move to passing a vote with 51 votes. Now, this does require multiple long days on the Senate floor for both Republicans and Democrats. And to dive in a little deeper, I had mentioned you're only when you speak on the bill, the standing filibuster, talking filibuster, the Democrats would only be allowed two speeches each on a legislative matter. On a legislative day, they can speak a long time if they choose. During each speech, they can't. But they cannot. They can't lean on a desk, they can't sit. They can't leave the floor during the speech. They have to be just talking straight through. So those requirements for a speech, as well as the limit for how many speeches there are, will finally exhaust the time. And so we're looking at something like it could be days, it could be weeks. And before you can even get to that, the reason that we're able to even have the Senate gets that standing talking filibuster part of this is if you were to look up, if you were to Google and search Save America act and you see on Congress.gov that, hey, this actually hasn't moved through the House. I see that Chip Roy introduced this bill, but it's, it's still just referred to the Committee on House Administration. I don't see that it's actually passed. Well, the House Rules Committee had amended a version of that's. It's Senate Bill 1383. So S. 1383. And that's what the House had passed. So because it's an amendment to a bill that originated in the Senate, it actually goes back to the Senate as what they call a message from the House to the Senate. And that's what allows Majority Leader Thune to bring it to the floor without needing to win 60 votes on a motion to invoke what they call cloture on a motion to proceed because he doesn't need that motion to proceed for a bill that the Senate is already considering because it's already Senate Bill 1383. So the leader will have to get 60 votes on a motion to end debate on the amended bill before final passage, though. So even when we're talking for so long and debating for so long and standing for so long, he will still need 60 votes to say, hey, we're ending debate. So the play here is just to exhaust the other side and talk about this for so long that they finally effectively actually to give up or that some deal is made for what we've been saying this whole Time is an 8317 issue of requiring citizenship to prove that you are an American citizen when you go to register to vote and then also when you actually vote to present a photo voter ID, these 8020 issues that the Democrats will be made to stand against for days or weeks on edge.
- [23:30]
A
So that is, that is very interesting because I think that's a point that's lost. They still need 60 votes to invoke cloture, even if they go through weeks and weeks of Democrats giving you their Spartacus moment. Of course, as we saw with a certain New Jersey senator a while back who may or may have not been wearing adult diapers. There's still some question about that 25 hour speech. But, but all of that said this Republican majority Senate, after all is said and done, it's not a majority vote when the last Democrat hoarsely says uncle.
- [24:13]
B
Right? That's right. You still would need that 60 votes to end debate. And we see when it comes to these procedural votes, even a couple days ago in the Save America act was moving through the rules committee in the House and then eventually to the House floor, Thomas Massie from Kentucky was getting a lot of heat for quote, unquote voting against the Save America act when he as always voted against the rule attached to the bill, which is, hey, we're going to expedite this and so we're going to do away with some of the procedure because we want to the House floor and he'll always be voting against, against that. He wants every bill, no matter what to go through certain procedures. And so he was getting a lot of heat for voting, quote, unquote against the State of America Act. But when it came time to for final passage, he was a yes vote on the Save America Act. So that's the hope is like, hey, senators, they're going to be exhausted. They're going to be doing this for days and weeks. They're saying they're crying uncle and every Republican will be on board to say yes, we're evoking cloture, we are proceeding. And then you will get someone maybe like Senator Fetterman from Pennsylvania who's actually a co sponsor on the legislation, believe it or not. We can't get certain senators from Alaska to, to, to say these 83, 17 issues are something that they want to put their name behind. But a Democrat from Pennsylvania will. So there that is. The only, the only hope is that you get those seven Crossovers to say, look, we've shut down the Senate effectively for however many days or weeks this has taken. We haven't taken up any other issue. And it's, it's a, it's a Senate shutdown is what it's going to be labeled as, I'm sure. And it's a government shutdown in effect, where they're not actually working on anything except this bill.
- [26:03]
A
And that gives me less hope for this bill in the Senate than I originally had. I think a lot of Americans think, okay, you go through this lengthy process and then at the end of the day you just vote up or down, you get a majority of Republicans supporting, is passed, it goes to the President's desk. Nope, that is not the case. So, so you have a lot of scenarios playing out here. But the one that really comes to mind is the argument from Republicans, which will be the public argument that Democrats will make if they are forced to go through this standing filibuster. We have so many more important things to do, or we have so many important things to do, maybe this is just as important, but we have so, so many other legislative matters to take up. But as Senator Ron Johnson told me last week, that's a crock. That's not exactly a direct quote from him, but that's the, the sentiment. The Senate isn't doing anything anyway because it's the 60 vote cloture, you know, for, for everything. So why not concentrate on the thing that is the core fundamental issue facing constitutional republic, democracy is that message, Senator Johnson's message getting through not to Lisa Murkowski, we know, but, but to the, the vast majority of Senate Republicans.
- [27:46]
B
I think you do see a coalescing of Senate Republicans. I believe Senator Mike Lee, he's the one who's carrying the Senate component of the Save America act. And I believe he was at 45 co sponsors and he expected, I believe that to get up to 48 or 49. So you do see a coalescing around the issue. Now, of course, there is a difference between being a co sponsor on a bill and saying that you're willing to go through a very lengthy process that is going to be a messaging process. You and Senator Ron Johnson, you kind of hit on this point, which is we, and I'm speaking as Ron Johnson here, if I'm a Republican, we get the blame no matter what for a shutdown. And so if we're going to actually say, hey, we're doing nothing else except the Save America act, then it'd be very reasonable. I Think for a voter or any member of the public to say, well the Senate's not doing anything except this one bill. And yeah, the Democrats are fighting back, but what else would you expect the other side to be doing? And so it is territory that is, is dangerous, but it's, you get into the political game of look, this is A, an 8317 issue that is important and if we can't agree on this, you know, what are we actually going to agree on to get that 60 vote threshold? So you do hit on that. I fear that, look, if this lasts a week or two weeks or three weeks, this news cycle is 24 7. There's something that's going to happen that's going to pop that the Democrats are going to point to and say, look, we can't actually do anything in the Senate because Republicans have us tied up talking about these issues that don't actually matter because blah, blah, blah, it's already illegal for non citizens to vote or it's racist to require photo voter id. So they've got the playbook down. They can wait and wait and wait. And the more the news cycle goes on and drags on, that's their play. Is that what are the American people going to be tired of first? Are they going to be tired of Republicans shutting down the Senate for these two provisions or are they going to be tired of Democrats calling everyone racist all the time for things that they don't agree with? And I think that's the fight that's brewing.
- [30:08]
A
Yeah. What you noted was one of the most contextual lies out there that the Democrats have of all the myriad lies that they are pushing out to the American people, is that it's already illegal to vote if you are, you know, an illegal immigrant or a foreign national, a non citizen. That is true based on a, an honor system. And if you're already breaking the law to get into this country, you have to start asking about the honor system, which means that you, you have to check a box in your registration whether you're a citizen or not. There is no way of proving that. Of course there is. There is no way of very little that you can do about that once that's in the system. But that, that will be, of course one of the biggest talking points the Democrats will bring out if it gets to a talking filibuster. Now Johnson said, if we're going to do this, why don't we put a bunch of stuff in here and really make this baby sale because we're going to take the time, let's fight for it. Let's fight for other election integrity measures, some other important things. Do you see that happening right now? Is there the will to do that in the Senate?
- [31:27]
B
I'm so glad you brought that up because Speaker Johnson made the exact argument that I was making just to friends and family of if we're going to be doing this and having the Senate just do these two provisions for election territory and go through all that trouble, why aren't we doing all 12, 13, 14 things that you and I could think of that are these 80, 20 issues that have to do with making our elections more secure, Something like requiring all ballots to be received by Election Day, something like requiring a request, an affirmative request from a voter to receive a mail ballot, not just sending ballots to everyone automatically on these voter roll lists that these states can't even maintain properly where you have these live ballots. And here in D.C. you hear story after story of a very transient city people moving all the time. And come election day or here in D.C. election season because of all the early voting, it's, hey, I got six ballots in my, in my mailbox, I got four ballots all the previous tenants. And so why not a citizenship indicator on a driver's license or any other identific card that says, yes, here's a stamp that says US Citizen? Why not a prohibition on ballot harvesting or a prohibition on ranked choice voting? Why not the requirement to preserve election records for a minimum amount of time? And what are the, what are those election records? These are when you poll them, 80, 20 issues that the vast majority of Americans say, yeah, that makes sense. Wait, that's not the law already. Wait, what are we doing? And why not, as Speaker Johnson said, throw all those things. And so I just listed, I think maybe what 6, 7, 8 provisions. And all those can be found in actually the mega Act, MEGA standing for make election. Sorry, make elections great again. And that bill was recently introduced by my former boss, Chairman Brian Stile of the Committee on House Administration. There's actually a hearing this week on that bill. And yeah, why not? That do do everything. Why not? If we're going to go through all the trouble of having the senator stand and talk for that long, go all the way. And I hear one counter argument which is, look, if you do that, if Republicans do that, then the Democrats are just going to hit back three times harder. Well, you know what? They already tried. They already tried with HR1 and HR4, the John Lewis Voting Rights act, or later the Freedom to Vote act, or as I call it, the Freedom to cheat act where they it was a nationalized federal one size fits all 600 page bill takeover of elections and that those were the issues that were even less than 50 50. Those are only popular within the very extreme radical left. What we're talking about here, those provisions that I mentioned that are in the mega act, those are your 8020 issues. And so I'm not saying that we need to nationalize or federalize elections. What I'm saying is that there should be a federal baseline standard. And so for the pure constitutionalists out there, the, the, the federalists out there who say, I don't know, even requiring a photo voter id, well that, that's a voter qualification. If you look at Article 1 of the Constitution, I don't know if, if we can do that, if Congress can do that. And the Supreme Court said in inter tribal case in 2013, well, you know what? The NV is already federal law. Yeah, that's the National Voter Registration act of 1993. HAVA Help America Vote Act 2002 already federal law. That was in Chads Bush V. Gore in 2000. So Congress has already taken action on elections multiple times. And so this is just a simple amendment to what Congress has already done to institute these baseline standards.
- [35:24]
A
That's an excellent point. One of two things going to have to happen. The Supreme Court's going to have to go back and say hava and the National Voter Rights act is unconstitutional. You can't do that. Or if they don't do that and they haven't, then what is being proposed right now through the Save America act is absolutely constitutional. Messaging has always been a problem for the Republicans. And I, and I, I hope they get better at it real quick on, on this front in particular. I also note that you drive home the point that it's really the Wisconsin guys that are, they're making the good common sense out there. And as, as an old Wisconsin guy, I appreciate that we mentioned Senator Johnson, we, we mentioned representative style, both from the great state of Wisconsin, like yours truly. I want to read this from Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist. I think this is very pointed and I think it's, it's a great point. I want to get your take on it. We talked about the Republicans who simply won't go along with this Lisa Murkowski and perhaps a guy who has acted in a lot of ways out of spite toward President Trump and that is Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Majority Leader. The Republican from Kentucky, Sean writes this. McConnell's heel turn on election security is Worse than spike fight. It's about money and power. And he goes through to talk about, you know, McConnell's associates, his congressional aides, former congressional aides and what have you writing about, you know, the, the SAVE act, opposing the SAVE act, all of these sorts of things. But what it comes down to in, in Sean's argument is there's a lot of money, particularly he argues, from the military industrial complex to keep things status quo. What do you think about all of that?
- [37:34]
B
I haven't read the piece, but now I need to, I need to find that piece and take a look. It's amazing insight into what Senator McConnell, his path to today, which is a champion for really campaign finance restructuring and tailoring for decades. And now as the Senate Rules Chair, no longer the majority leader, that's now Senator Thune, but where he's at is the Senate Rules Committee. And I bring that up because over on the Senate side, the Federal oversight of elections goes through the Senate Rules Committee. And so why did Save America have to go to the Senate floor in the way that it did? Well, it's because they had to bypass that committee process and Mitch McConnell not bringing certain legislation to the floor. Now, I, or sorry to the committee and I can't predict the future. I don't know what his vote would eventually be, whether it's for cloture or for final passage of the bill. I have hope that in many ways he has been a great ally to the president and to the Republican Party when it comes to Supreme Court judges and, and other issues. But recently we have seen, I think the quote was a heel turn. And so I'm remaining as optimistic as I can be. Now, your listeners might say, Thomas, you're being stupid. And I probably might be, but I think with proper messaging and with a coalescing behind such a simple issue, I do still have hope that in the end, on his last years as a Senator, with Senator McConnell retiring at the end of his term, that he'll leave one final gift to the American people and it's his yes vote on very reasonable legislation.
- [39:32]
A
Or will he leave one final fu to Donald Trump? That remains to be seen. Of course, you said you can't predict the future. No one can. But you do have particular insight into the process. You know, you have particular insight because a, you're responsible for some of the, the language in the bill. Am I correct on that? In the original SAVE Act? Yeah.
- [39:57]
B
So the original SAVE act, if I were to go back to my time on the Hill on the command House administration as A staffer before my time at America First Policy Institute. What a lot of people don't know about the Committee on House Administration, I think most people know, oh, Judiciary, I've heard of that. Oh, Oversight, I've heard of, of Comer and Jim Jordan and I see those committees on tv. Well, the Committee on House Administration is a much smaller committee and it is a Speaker selected committee. Now a lot of the Judiciary, Education, Oversight, those members and the Chairman are selected by a body including the speaker. But a steering committee, you get 20 or so of the top Republicans together at the beginning of a Congress to say, hey, these are the people we want on each committee.
- [40:45]
A
Committee.
- [40:46]
B
Well, the Committee on House Administration is specifically selected just by the Speaker. And so it's seen as the Speaker's committee and it has oversight over the House. It's the House administration also over parking or Capitol Police, but within that is the seating of its own members. I'm quoting the Constitution here where we're talking about federal oversight of elections. And in the event that there is an election challenge, things I think Marionette Miller Meeks in Iowa, Representative won by six votes. Just six, six votes. A few years ago, that committee, the community House administration turns into effectively a court to hear these challenges. And so I totally lost for a second why I was going so deep into this history. But it's about the SAVE act and why, I guess my part in the SAVE Act. And so we on the committee had passed a number of bills on non citizens voting. We marked them up, meaning it went through the amendment process and we sent them to the House floor. But come early 2024, we're approached by that Speaker's team again, Speakers Committee and in close consult with the speaker and his team, hey, we have this idea, this bill that we've been working on with, with Chip Roy and it's about verifying citizenship at voter registration. And we said, great, we've passed these seven bills already on very similar ideas. And they said, all right, well we want to take this one fresh, simple, just this one idea and we want to move it through the process. Let's get your help because it's going to go through your committee. Of course we said great, let's help. And the drafting of the bill was done by Chip Roy's team and the Speaker's team. And then my involvement there at the time when, when I was a staffer was to work with my colleague and say, hey, how, how does this actually become a viable product that could get through the Senate? And that was to add the list maintenance or the voter roll maintenance provisions that you'll see in both the SAVE act and the Save America act and for that matter even the MEGA act make collections great again act, which is the requirement to remove non assistance from the voter rolls to use tools that are available to verify whether the people already on the rolls. Because we could talk all we want about verifying citizenship at voter registration, but you, me, millions of others are already on the voter roll. So what do we do about those people? Right? We can stop the bleeding. If the, if President Biden at the time when I was on the Hill is going to be letting in tens of millions of illegal immigrants, what do we do about those folks who are already on the rolls? And it doesn't have to just be there are even more non citizens. And yes, all illegals are non citizens, but not all non citizens are illegal. You mentioned earlier permanent residents, the people who are here with green cards, who receive driver's licenses from a number of states and who could be handed a packet at their local DMV thanks to the motor voter law, the NVRA that we mentioned earlier, hey, fill out all these forms and they could very accidentally even end up on the voter rolls where they don't even have the intent to be on there. And so this argument that hey, it's already illegal for non citizens to be on the rolls, it doesn't hold water because people make mistakes and it that could be the voter who makes a mistake, the non citizen who makes a mistake by filling out a form that they, you know, aren't aware would be illegal to fill out or even on the processing side from the election administrators to not check. And of course I'm not naive to say that in states where it has been shown, take Michigan and Secretary State Jocelyn Benson for example, where it seems to be an active eff to keep certain people on the voter rolls who shouldn't be on there. And so this has been a very long way of saying Speaker's team had approached and we had added in with their consultation, hey, it's great that we're going to keep non citizens from registering, but we have to do something about the people who are potentially already on the roll. So let's provide tools that already exist within the federal government that are already taxpayer funded to those states and say hey, use these tools, for example, the Social Security Administration's death database where the Social Security Administration, the government is really good at finding out whether you're dead or not and not paying you any more money, right?
- [45:22]
A
Indeed.
- [45:24]
B
And Also the dhs, the Department of Homeland Security, their SAVE database and yes, same acronym, SAVE stands for the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, not the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility. SAVE and save, but that is, hey, a lot of non citizens, they have an identification number because they receive entitlements. And so if someone's in that database, it remains to, you know, it's logical that their non citizen should be on the voter rolls. And so we also have a section right after that that says, hey, if you DHS receive notice that a non citizen becomes a citizen, people become citizens every day, then let us know so that we can say, look, they might show up in the same database, but they're actually citizens now. And so we were getting in the weeds on really making this, this a law that would make sense. Now one page, two page bills sound great in theory, but you run the risk of messing up a whole lot of stuff if you're not detailed enough at the start. And so that was my involvement was working with the Speaker's team and with Chip Roy's team, the bill sponsor at the time, and still with SAVE and Save America, this Congress, to really make this a workable product that would not be easy for the left to take to court as soon as the President signs it and becomes effective and really have it be an ironclad piece of legislation that will serve the American people.
- [46:43]
A
Well, they'll take it to court no matter what. You know, that doesn't matter how ironclad. And they get some judges we've seen over the last year, plus that, that agree with their lack of understanding of the Constitution, obviously for political reasons. Final question then. For you having gone through all of this process from, from the beginning and you not being able to predict the future, what's your bet on passive? What's the number? What are the odds that we see passage of some form of the SAVE act, be it the Save America act, the original SAVE act, the MEGA act, whatever it may be.
- [47:23]
B
People always have really good lines to open their answers about not making predictions or not wanting to give odds. And I can't recall any of those off the top of my head. So I'll give you my honest answer, which is it should be. I'll tell you what it should be. It should be 100% right. This is an issue that is so easy, but with everything we talked about this last 45 minutes, what are the odds? What would I put it at? And I don't want to dishearten anybody, but it really, it's a Call to action of if I give a 5 to 1 odds that it won't happen, then prove me wrong, please. If I were to put money and you're to offer me even money, a one for one bet, you know, say I bet you $10 that's not going to happen and you bet me $10 that it will, I think I have a really good shot right now of unfortunately being correct. But I hope that the listeners that the voters really do put the pressure not just on the Republicans but the Democrats as well to say, look, I'm one of those 70 something percent of Democrats who believe that this is the right thing. I'm one of those 80, 90% of Republicans who think this is the right thing. I'm not seeing this on party lines. I'm seeing this as an American to if as the president likes to say, if we don't have borders, we don't have a country and if we're not verifying citizenship, if we're allowing the world to vote in American elections, that just goes against the whole tenet of American elections are for the American people. And so it's been a long grandstanding way of saying if I were to put proper odds on it, 5 to 1, 4 to 1 that it's not going to get through the Senate. But that's why we are fighting every day publishing research, op EDS papers, talking with people like you. We here at the American First Policy Institute say, look, let's get our people on message, on board, educated with what is right for the American people and change those odds. Change that five to one, that four to one to be a one to one or you know what, 100%, that's something this simple. Let's change this country and change the narrative around the effectiveness of Congress, Congress and the approval rating of the senators and the members of the House to be something that we can all be proud of and to show that we're the greatest country in the world for a reason. And when we say America first, we're not just saying that because we're, you know, superior in every way. We're saying that because look, we've been around for this is our 250th year and we're still standing, we're still the greatest country in the world. And it's because of these principles that we have that we will maintain this tradition mission for another 250 years. And this issue of election integrity is.
- [50:03]
A
Key in that absolutely fundamental. And if you think you're grandstanding, I'd like to introduce you to Eric Swalwell. Okay? That's the guy who, among many of his left colleagues, have excelled at grandstanding. Thanks to my guest today, Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute's director of Election Integrity and American Justice. Campaign director. Director. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. It.