Trump voting bill push stalls House agenda

President Trump’s demand for action on a stalled elections bill has thrown Congress into a standoff, prompting him to delay signing a bipartisan housing measure and emboldening House conservatives to block legislative business until the Senate acts.

The fight centers on the SAVE America Act, a Republican-backed voting regulations bill that would require documentary proof of citizenship and voter ID. Trump has also pushed to add other GOP priorities, including restrictions on mail-in voting and a ban on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. The House has passed earlier versions of the legislation, with support from a small number of Democrats, but Senate Republican leaders say it lacks the votes needed to clear the chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday that Republicans do not have enough support to advance the bill and are not prepared to change Senate rules to pass it.

“We’ve made the point a number of times, as you know, that we don’t have the votes. But that’s not a conclusion obviously he would like to see us draw,” Thune said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Trump’s approach was impeding his own priorities. “If he chooses to hold up his own agenda because he wants action on the SAVE Act, that’s, I guess, his call. It is not helpful to him,” she said. “It’s not moving the needle. If you don’t have the votes, sir, you don’t have the votes.”

Trump canceled a planned Wednesday signing ceremony for what CBS News described as the first comprehensive housing affordability legislation in decades, a bill with broad bipartisan support in both chambers. He said he would not sign it until lawmakers pass the SAVE America Act. Earlier this month, Trump also refused to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a warrantless surveillance authority that provides much of the intelligence in his daily security briefing, unless the elections bill was attached, CBS News reported. That authority has not been reauthorized.

The pressure campaign has now moved to the House floor. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said Wednesday evening that she and enough other Republicans would block procedural votes needed to move legislation until the Senate returns to Washington.

“I will not be voting to re-open the floor until the Senate gets back to Washington,” Luna wrote on social media, according to Talking Points Memo. “The Senate is literally running and not ONE senator objected to going on vacation before 4th of July. John Thune is running and hiding because he doesn’t want to get voter ID across the finish line.”

On Thursday, members of the House Freedom Caucus criticized the Senate for leaving for a scheduled recess that runs until July 13. “The Senate sucks,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said House conservatives would remain in Washington “and do whatever it takes” to get the bill to Trump’s desk.

“We have done our job, but if there’s more to do, God bless it, we will stay and suffer through it,” Perry said.

House GOP leaders later canceled Friday votes and scheduled only one vote Thursday afternoon. With a narrow majority, Republican leaders need nearly all GOP members to support party-line procedural votes.

Luna has argued that the SAVE America Act cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process, which allows certain budget-related bills to pass the Senate by a simple majority. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he believes reconciliation may be the best path and suggested creating a grant program that states could use to implement election provisions.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, rejected a narrower version. “We need the entirety of the SAVE America Act passed,” he said.

Trump also appeared cool to the reconciliation option. Asked Wednesday whether he would accept SAVE Act provisions in such a measure, he said, “Not really, no.”

After meeting Trump at the White House on Thursday, Johnson said they were “on exactly the same page” and urged House Republicans to stop blocking floor action. “The majority party should never be voting down rules,” Johnson said. “We got to be able to move forward on legislation and continue the America First agenda.”