The Senate is moving away from Sen. Mike Lee’s election bill until further notice as lawmakers scramble to meet a number of deadlines to fund immigration enforcement and renew government surveillance powers. But the Utah senator is not yet ready to surrender.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., confirmed the Senate would “pivot away” from the SAVE America Act, Lee’s sweeping election reform bill to ban noncitizens from voting and implement photo ID requirements in order to vote in federal elections. Lee triggered a floor takeover last month to keep the legislation as the only pending business in the Senate, a move that will now be overturned in order to turn focus to Homeland Security funding and national security talks.
Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the Senate can return to debate on the SAVE America Act once those bills are passed, but Lee confirmed to the Deseret News that they “don’t have a firm timetable.”
“Right now, we’re dealing with a number of privileged vehicles,” Lee said. “And I understand there are some things that because of their emergent nature or because of their privileged status, sometimes they have to get put to the front line. But nobody has said we’re not doing (SAVE America Act), and I don’t think anyone should expect that we’re not doing it.”
The delay comes as Republicans race to pass a spending bill funding Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the next three years without needing Democratic approval. President Donald Trump has given the party a deadline of June 1.
Lawmakers must also come to an agreement on extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an issue that has reignited tense debate and division across Capitol Hill. Congress passed an extension of key government spy powers last week, temporarily punting the deadline until April 30 as lawmakers in both parties disagree on whether to reform the contentious surveillance program.
Any legislative action on the SAVE America Act will need to wait until after that, making the likelihood of its eventual passage unclear.
However, some Republicans have floated attaching portions of the SAVE America Act to either of those legislative vehicles — a suggestion that Lee said would be easier said than done. While there are some proposals that could be added to the DHS funding bill that adhere to the strict budget rules, Lee said those likely wouldn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the upcoming package.
“This is a very narrowly focused budget resolution designed to produce a very narrowly focused budget reconciliation bill dealing with the DHS problem,” Lee said of the budget resolution being voted on this week by the Senate.
Because of the pivot away from Lee’s election reform bill — which conservative Republicans demanded be passed before anything else — Democrats had begun to declare victory that the legislation had failed. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., told Politico this week he believed Democrats “won the battle” but acknowledged Republicans were “not giving up on the war.”
Lee appeared to agree with the second half of that assessment.
“I don’t regard it as dead,” Lee told the Deseret News. “I don’t think most of my colleagues regard it as dead. If we get to the point that it’s dead, it will be dead because Senate Republicans didn’t vote on it. But we have not made a decision not to do that. And Sen. Thune has been saying we’ll get back to it. And I think most if not all of us expect that.”