A number of Republican lawmakers are unsure of an emerging plan to pass a sweeping election reform bill through a tool that would allow the majority party to fast-track legislation without needing a filibuster.
Republican senators emerged from a meeting with the White House on Monday evening with ambitions to advance the contested election package using budget reconciliation, a rare procedural gambit that will require near-unanimity among the majority party. But the strategy is already raising some questions about its viability — including from Utah Sen. Mike Lee, the main sponsor of the SAVE America Act.
“It’s hard to imagine how the SAVE America Act could be passed through reconciliation,” Lee said in a post on X. “And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible.’”
Through the budget reconciliation process, the majority party can prevent a filibuster to expedite the passage of certain legislation and go around the minority party by enacting key pieces of their agenda with a simple majority vote.
But there are certain rules that dictate how often reconciliation can be used, and the procedure can only be utilized to advance budget-related legislation such as taxes, spending and the debt limit.
The SAVE America Act as its written deals solely with legislative policy, making it unclear how it would qualify for budget reconciliation. Lawmakers could attempt to enact some of its provisions by offering budgetary incentives to individual states, but the election reforms could not be implemented on a national scale like Lee is pushing for.
Still, even if it is possible to push parts of the SAVE America Act through, some Republicans are already expressing skepticism about the idea.
“I don’t think that’s a good approach,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said on Tuesday.
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, told the Deseret News on Monday that although it’s “a path forward,” he believes it will “be hard to do anything in reconciliation.”
“We did it before because there was so much agreement that the tax cuts expire,” Curtis said, referring to the tax package last summer. “Lacking that kind of motivation, I think it’s going to be hard.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters she wasn’t a “big fan” of a second reconciliation bill.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been hesitant to move forward on a second reconciliation bill, telling reporters for months there would need to be a “good reason” to do so.
“We’ll look at all the options on SAVE America. We’ve contemplated reconciliation for other things. We have a couple of vehicles available to us,” Thune said on Tuesday. “And if we find that that’s a viable path that makes sense to get some things done that we want to get done, we’ll use it.”
Still, Republicans in the House have started floating ideas for what election-related provisions could be included in a second reconciliation bill should the party go that route. Part of that framework would include voter ID laws, proof of citizenship, post-election audits, and more, according to an early draft obtained by Deseret News.
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have rejected the idea of moving the SAVE America Act through reconciliation, lamenting the full underlying bill should be passed through the Senate. The House has already passed the election reform package.
“This is gaslighting,” the caucus put out in a statement. “The American people are not stupid and will not accept more failure theater from Republicans in Congress.”