A group of conservative Republicans’ efforts to include an election integrity measure within a Senate-passed deal to end the government shutdown faced a setback Monday afternoon after President Donald Trump indirectly urged them to stand down.
Trump urged the House of Representatives to quickly approve the $1.2 trillion funding package with “NO CHANGES” that would end the three-day partial shutdown, in a post on Truth Social. A group of lawmakers, led by Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, have demanded that House leadership attach an updated version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to the appropriations package in order to obtain their support for the package.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I hope everyone will vote, YES!”
The new version of the SAVE Act incorporates voter ID language in addition to requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote in federal elections. Luna and a group of House conservatives have vowed to block the funding package if the election integrity measure is not added to the bill.
“I have been clear: the SAVE Act/Save America Act must be attached to the rule for these appropriations bills and sent back to the Senate for a vote,” Luna wrote on X on Sunday.
House Democrats are also unlikely to help GOP leadership pass a rule teeing up a vote on the funding package. Given Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority, he can afford to lose just one defecting Republican in a party-line vote.
Johnson suggested Monday that incorporating the updated SAVE Act within the government funding package risks a prolonged shutdown. The measure would have to go back to the Senate for a second time where Senate Democrats are likely to tank the legislation if the voter ID measure is included.
“We all want the SAVE Act. We also look at the reality of the numbers here,” Johnon told reporters. “But this is a funding package right now, and I don’t think we need to be playing games with government funding. We still have winter storms. We’ve FEMA and TSA and troop pay and everything else wrapped into this. So we need to get the job done.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly described the SAVE Act as a “poison pill” and warned that his caucus would filibuster any legislation including the SAVE Act. The lead Democrat also compared the election integrity measure, endorsed by many black and Hispanic Republicans, to “Jim Crow” laws.
“If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown,” Schumer said in a statement on Monday while pinning the funding lapse on the president.
Luna fired back at Schumer for suggesting the election integrity bill will disenfranchise minority voters.
“If you are a minority that wants a voter ID apparently you are for racist policies according to @SenSchumer,” Luna wrote in a Monday X post.
House GOP leadership is currently racing to lock down GOP support for advancing the funding package ahead of an expected procedural vote as early as Tuesday afternoon. Under the Senate passed-measure, five appropriations bills — covering nearly 80% of the government — will be funded through September while Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding will be extended for two weeks.
The White House and Senate Democrats agreed to temporarily fund DHS while they negotiate proposed reforms to immigration enforcement. However, some House conservatives have suggested they could oppose advancing the funding package due to the lack of a full-year DHS bill.
“This did not get better. It got worse,” Republican Missouri Rep. Eric Burlison said Monday, referring to the Senate-passed measure up for consideration in the House. “I don’t know why they think they think they’re going to be able to get all of the Republicans to vote for this.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune publicly endorsed the election integrity measure last week, but has yet to schedule a floor vote for it.
Luna has acknowledged that the SAVE Act will likely fail on the Senate floor if considered as a standalone bill given the upper chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. Attaching the voter ID measure to a must-pass bill, such as the funding package, is viewed by Luna and conservative Republicans as a more viable pathway to get the legislation on Trump’s desk for signature.
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