House Republicans are preparing a new attempt to enact key provisions of President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act by using the budget reconciliation process, a maneuver that could allow voter ID and citizenship-verification measures to advance through the Senate without overcoming the chamber’s usual 60-vote filibuster threshold.
The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, has been a major priority for Trump and congressional Republicans but has remained stalled in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has resisted bringing the legislation up when there are not enough votes to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans would need Democratic support to reach 60 votes under regular Senate procedure. Democrats have strongly opposed the legislation, arguing that its documentation requirements could make voting more difficult for eligible citizens, while Republicans say the measures are necessary to strengthen safeguards around federal elections.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is now advocating an alternative strategy: putting major elements of the legislation into a budget reconciliation package. Reconciliation can pass the Senate by a simple majority, although its provisions generally must have a sufficient connection to federal spending, revenue or debt. House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., is working on how the election provisions could be structured to fit those requirements.
“I’d rather pass the SAVE America Act. But recognizing that the Senate might not be able to get that done with the 60-vote threshold, let’s leverage the parliamentary procedure, bring that threshold down to 50, and get some really commonsense reforms done,” Steil told Fox News Digital in an interview. “I’ve been having great conversations with my colleagues in the administration as well as the Senate.”
Steil said he would like Congress to complete the reconciliation package in time for the November midterm elections, although he acknowledged that “the clock is ticking down pretty quickly.”
Reconciliation itself can be a lengthy process. Republicans spent roughly six months using the procedure to enact Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act last year. The House and Senate first must approve budget frameworks instructing relevant committees to produce legislation that meets specified spending or savings targets.
Once those committees complete their portions of the legislation, they send them to their respective budget committees, which combine the pieces into larger packages. Ultimately, the House and Senate must approve identical legislation before it can be sent to President Trump.
Steil’s House Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal election law, is looking to incorporate two of the SAVE America Act’s central provisions into reconciliation: requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship during voter registration and establishing a nationwide photo-identification requirement for voting in federal elections.
“The House can go as fast as the Senate. And so the frustration that I and others have is the Senate’s not moving as fast as we would like on this. I actually think there’s 50 votes in the Senate for some of these really commonsense provisions,” Steil said. “I’d like to be sooner rather than later, but I don’t control them.”
A significant obstacle remains the Senate parliamentarian, who advises the chamber on whether provisions comply with reconciliation rules. Provisions whose effects are primarily policy-related rather than budgetary can be removed from reconciliation legislation, potentially creating problems for an election-law bill.
Steil believes Republicans may be able to establish the necessary budgetary connection through federal money distributed to states under the Help America Vote Act, the 2002 law that provides funding for election administration.
“We could free up those funds or enhance those funds for states to do those post-election audits, which is a really important part of election integrity. You can do the same in regards to photo ID,” he said, adding that making Real ID the standard could also effectively impact the citizenship mandate. “Effectively, when an individual gets REAL ID, they’re proving their citizenship.”
The Trump administration has backed the effort to use reconciliation. Earlier this year, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told Republican lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that the White House supported pursuing SAVE America provisions through reconciliation and viewed the procedure as a potential path for advancing the election legislation.
“The White House is engaged. We’ve had good conversations,” Steil told Fox News Digital.
The House approved its version of the new reconciliation package earlier this summer, with a $95 billion budget framework focused on additional military funding and election security.
Progress has been slower in the Senate. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., unveiled his chamber’s framework shortly before senators departed for their August recess, but the timetable for moving it through the committee and onto the Senate floor remains uncertain.
The Senate proposal would authorize as much as $150 billion in spending, creating a sizable difference between the two chambers’ approaches.
Speaker Johnson acknowledged the disparity during an interview with Fox News Digital last month, while arguing that expanding the package could make an already complicated reconciliation process even more difficult.
“I mean, the idea was, in keeping it skinny, is to move it quickly. And so the more you add to it, the more complex it gets, the more in the Senate — not to get too deep in the weeds — but procedurally, it involves more committees of jurisdiction in both bodies. And that’s where things start to get weighted down. So we’re very close to an election, the stakes are very high, the timing is short, and if you’re going to do election integrity measures, you need to do it, like, yesterday,” Johnson said. “We passed the SAVE America Act four times in the House. This is the last best effort to get it through the Senate, so I’m for doing it as quickly as possible.”
Steil said he believes Republicans in the two chambers can ultimately resolve their differences over the reconciliation package.
“I think, broadly, we’re aligned. I think obviously the total numbers are different,” he said. “I think everyone recognizes the importance of making sure that our men and women in uniform have the resources needed to not only defend themselves but to defend our country… And also that we have the resources needed to make sure that we’re protecting our election.”