The SAVE America Act, Stuck in Neutral

Congress has been out of Washington since the first week of August, and it is going to stay that way for a while. The House gets one brief week back, Monday, August 31 through Thursday, September 3, before disappearing again for Labor Day week. The Senate does not bother coming back at all until September 14. So, for the next several weeks, “Congress” mostly means senators and representatives giving interviews and floor speeches about things they cannot yet vote on. Here is where our three, Sen. Dave McCormick, Sen. John Fetterman, and Rep. Rob Bresnahan, stand on two of the big fights.

The SAVE America Act, the GOP push to require proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo ID at the polls, has had floor votes since March but still hasn't passed — most recently, a June 25 attempt to attach it to an immigration funding package failed 48-50 — despite being a stated Trump priority. It may resurface, folded into a Senate budget reconciliation package, but that package is still being drafted and will not get a vote before September at the earliest.

McCormick has been one of the bill's most vocal Senate boosters, delivering multiple floor speeches arguing it does one thing: “ensures that only American citizens cast ballots in American elections.” He points to polling showing voter ID requirements draw broad, bipartisan public support.

Fetterman is not a yes, but he is not exactly dug in against the idea either. He voted against advancing the bill in its current bundled form, calling it a “Christmas list” of unrelated provisions and telling Republicans to stop “attacking vote-by-mail.” His stated position: he would vote yes on a “clean, standalone bill” requiring photo ID and nothing else. For now, neither version exists, so the fight, and the vote, stays on hold.