Tucked inside a sweeping $95 billion budget reconciliation package unveiled Wednesday, House Republicans are maneuvering to advance key provisions of the SAVE America Act — sidestepping the Senate filibuster entirely by routing the legislation through the spending process, NBC News reported. The blueprint assigns the House Administration Committee a $10 billion allocation to carry out elements of the measure, with broader instructions directing committees on overall spending levels.
The original SAVE Act, formally the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, cleared the House last year but stalled in the Senate. Lawmakers then expanded it, and on Feb. 11 the House approved the enlarged SAVE America Act 218-213. Where the original legislation demanded documentary proof of citizenship to register and required states to purge noncitizens from voter rolls, the newer version layers on a photo ID requirement for casting ballots in federal elections. Voting by noncitizens in federal contests is alrEADy prohibited by law and is an exceedingly rare occurrence; existing federal statute also compels voters to swear under penalty of perjury that they are citizens and eligible to participate.
President Donald Trump has championed the legislation aggressively, and he has also floated abolishing the Senate filibuster to force it through. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has made clear that option is off the table, telling reporters his caucus is "not even close" to mustering the votes for such a move, according to NBC News. The bill cannot clear the chamber's 60-vote threshold on its own.
That reality has pushed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., toward reconciliation as the only viable path. Following a Wednesday evening session with Vice President JD Vance and House Republican members, Johnson declared, "We're going to pass the Save America Act into law, as much of that as possible," NBC News reported.
Thune struck a notably more measured tone. "We've looked at that at length," he said Thursday, "and there are some things you could do, but are they going to be sufficient to scratch the itch of the people who want the full SAVE Act?" He suggested that state grant funding might survive the process, but implied broader ambitions could fall short. Reconciliation rules confine eligible provisions to matters directly tied to taxes and spending, and the Senate's nonpartisan parliamentarian will ultimately determine what qualifies. Both chambers must first adopt the budget blueprint before drafting of the final reconciliation bill can proceed.
Opposition spans party lines. Democrats and a number of Republicans have raised alarms that millions of Americans lack ready access to passports or birth certificates, meaning the proof-of-citizenship requirement could effectively strip them of the right to vote, NBC News reported.
Trump has also made statements about the bill that do not hold up to scrutiny, according to NBC News. He claimed the legislation would eliminate mail-in voting except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel — a provision that does not exist in the text. What the bill actually does is require people who submit mail-in voter registration forms to appear at an election office in person to present citizenship documentation. Trump additionally posted on Truth Social that the legislation's "Full version" would ban transgender athletes and gender transition surgeries for minors — provisions that are likewise absent from the bill.
Timing has emerged as another flashpoint. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a bill supporter, has argued Congress must enact the measure by early August for it to be operational ahead of November's midterm elections. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who opposes the legislation, flatly rejected that timeline Wednesday. "Do y'all have any idea how many governmental entities have to implement these changes before November? More than 10,000. …If we had passed this last year, it couldn't have been implemented in time," Tillis told reporters, according to NBC News. "They're being disingenuous to suggest to the American people they could possibly be operational by this election. And so then it begins to make me wonder ... if we're just beginning to undermine the underlying integrity of any of our elections. And I think that's dangerous, and I think it's wrong."
This story has been rewritten for originality based on reporting by NBC News. All facts, figures, and direct quotations are preserved from the source material.