MAGA senators plotting 'takeover' to push Trump’s 'despicable' bill

16 March

U.S. Senator Mike Lee speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. (Image: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons)

President Donald Trump's MAGA allies in the Senate are plotting a major "takeover" of the chamber this week in order to push his "no. 1 priority" bill, which opponents have decried as "despicable."

Speaking with The Hill for a Monday report, several Trump allies in the Senate said that they are prepared to endure "long hours and possible late nights" during this week's marathon debates over the SAVE America Act. The bill, which Trump has dubbed his "no. 1 priority," would require people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and would require a photo ID when going to vote. Trump has pushed heavily for the bill, based largely on his long-debunked claims that undocumented immigrants are committing widespread voter fraud.

The bill passed in the House, but has stalled out in the Senate, largely thanks to the 60-vote filibuster threshold and Democratic resistance. While some polls have shown the bill has broad public support, its opponents have warned that it would impose major barriers to voting in the U.S., with some likening it to a "poll tax" and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling it "one of the most despicable pieces of legislation I’ve come across in the many years I’ve been a legislator." Majority Leader John Thune has resisted a major pressure campaign to alter filibuster rules in support of the bill, warning that the votes are not there one way or the other.

“The votes aren’t there, one, to nuke the filibuster and the votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster. It’s just a reality,” Thune said last week. “I’m the person who has to deliver sometimes the not-so-good news that the math doesn’t add up but those are the facts and there’s no getting around it.”

Nevertheless, MAGA Republicans are preparing to dig in hard for the bill this week, keeping the debate going for an extended period of time and forcing Democrats to articulate their opposition to it.

"What I want to do is try to maximize the period of time in which we debate it," GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, the sponsor of the bill, told The Hill. "Debating a bill that continues to get more popular even as people are trying to slow it down and stop it and obstruct it sometimes sharpens the minds of individual lawmakers and makes them more amenable in the end to negotiation. That’s what we’re looking at here."

Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama told The Hill that the party is still "working through" its strategy for holding the floor, but said, "Heck yeah," when asked if they planned to hold it for "quite a while."

"How long it goes is going to be instructive because the point of this is exhausting Democrats, the point of it is pain, the point of it is forcing a public and political process and seeing what comes out of it,” one anonymous GOP strategist explained to The Hill. “Is this going to be a fist fight or not? How bloody is Thune going to make this?

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