The White House has “made assurances” to schedule a vote on Sen. Mike Lee’s election security bill as part of conversations to end the partial government by satisfying a key demand from conservative Republicans.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, one of the main GOP defectors threatening to vote against the most recent spending bill to reopen the government, said she will back the funding package this week.
That reversal comes after a conversation with the White House on Monday, during which the Florida Republican said she was assured a vote on Lee’s SAVE America Act would be scheduled in the Senate.
“Based on the current discussion that we just had with the White House, as well as several senators, there is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow (Senate Majority Leader John) Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate,” Luna told reporters after the meeting. “We are hearing that that is going well, and that (Thune) is considering that.”
Luna later added she got “assurances” on using the standing filibuster, which she described as “an old-school parliamentary procedure” that requires senators to physically talk in order to delay a vote on legislation.
Details on how that procedure would work in this context are not yet known, but Luna said the agreement was enough that she and others would vote to advance the shutdown-ending spending deal.
The agreement comes after President Donald Trump earlier in the day shot down the effort from Luna to attach the SAVE Act to the larger spending bill. The SAVE Act seeks to ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections and has become a flashpoint in recent weeks.
The SAVE Act passed the House last year but has yet to be considered in the Senate.
“We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY. There can be NO CHANGES at this time,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats."
Lee had urged his Republican colleagues in the House to reject the spending deal to reopen the government unless it included his SAVE Act as well as language funding the Department of Homeland Security, which was removed in the Senate last week due to objections from Democrats. Luna was leading that effort in the House.
The Utah senator posted several times on his social media over the weekend urging House Republicans to amend the funding bill to include full DHS spending as well as his election security bill that has run into partisan opposition.
“Americans are tired of watching Democrats stamp their feet and hold DHS funding hostage because President Trump is doing his job and enforcing federal law,” Lee told the Deseret News in a statement. “House Republicans should ignore them — and pass the SAVE America Act to secure our elections while they’re at it."
Thune on Monday reiterated previous commitments to put the SAVE Act on the floor for a vote “soon enough.” Luna said most recent conversations indicate Thune is open to utilizing the standing filibuster to do so.
In the meantime, the top Senate Republican said the House should vote on the funding package as it’s currently written and save unrelated negotiations for later.
The House is scheduled to vote on Tuesday to approve the trillion-dollar spending package that passed the Senate last week. Its future has been uncertain as some conservative Republicans have threatened to oppose unless it includes more GOP policy wins — something Lee has publicly supported.
Although Luna has let up her demands, there are a handful of conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus who have remained undecided on their vote. The group sent a letter to Trump last week warning the latest spending package would “not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security” fully intact.
Parts of federal government shuttered as of Saturday
The last-minute scramble comes after the government entered a partial shutdown early Saturday morning and federal funding for a slew of agencies and departments lapsed. The Senate passed a funding package on Friday afternoon to fund the government, but the legislation faces an uphill battle in the House where Republicans have a slim majority.
The spending package would fund five of the six remaining appropriations bills for the 2026 fiscal year as well as a two-week extension for DHS as party leaders continue to negotiate new limits for immigration officers.
But the agreement to remove DHS funding, brokered by Senate Democrats and the White House, angered some Republicans such as Lee who called on conservatives in the House to reject the package unless it was restored.
“Dems had already written way too much of this bill by the time it first passed in the House — and it shows,” Lee, who voted against the funding bill, wrote in a post on X. “Then last week, (Senate Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer demanded that the DHS funding provision be replaced with a short, two-week extension (an extension Dems will use as leverage to demand restrictions on ICE and immigration enforcement broadly). Schumer’s demand was granted with no corresponding win for Republicans, and the Senate passed the bill.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., joined Lee’s calls to reject the spending bill unless it includes DHS funding and the SAVE America Act.
“If House Republicans don’t put the DHS bill back in, add the SAVE America Act & remove the wasteful earmarks, Democrats win,” Scott wrote in a post on X. “We must protect our homeland, secure our elections & end the reckless spending NOW!”
The House is expected to vote on the spending package as early as Tuesday.
Republican leaders initially planned to put the legislation on the floor under suspension of rules, meaning lawmakers could avoid procedural hurdles so long as Democrats helped pass the bill their party helped negotiate in the Senate.
However, House Democrats came out over the weekend to say they would not help pass the bill — putting pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to convince some of his most stubborn members to pass the bill even if it doesn’t include their demands.
Republicans can only afford to lose one or two members on any given vote, depending on attendance — giving Johnson virtually no room for error. House leaders will huddle for weekly meetings on Monday evening to discuss a path forward.