✪ OP-ED: Save The SAVE Act & Save The Republic: Sunset The Filibuster

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t should be obvious even to the most obtuse Republican in the Senate that Democrats will eventually regain another governing trifecta in Washington and will shortly thereafter “nuke” the legislative filibuster. They have pledged to do so in order to pass several pieces of controversial legislation; and would have done it already had it not been for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Consequently, Senate Republicans should kill the filibuster themselves if the Democrats attempt to shut down the government again .

There are a number of reasons to do so while the GOP retains its thin congressional majority. Without the filibuster, for example, Senate Democrats would not be able to block passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

They should follow the example of the Republican House leadership, who seem to understand how important it is to get an election integrity bill across the finish line. They have twice passed the SAVE Act, which would require states to obtain documentary proof of citizenship that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 before registering a person to vote in a federal election. Despite historically attenuated GOP majorities, the House passed the bill during the 118th Congress, but the Democrats who controlled the Senate at that time left it for dead. The House GOP has passed it again during the current 119th Congress, expecting the Republicans, who now hold a majority in the Senate, to take it up, yet still it languishes in committee.

The SAVE Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act; better known as the Motor Voter Law, by requiring states to obtain in-person documentary proof of citizenship before registering a person to vote in a Federal election. Senate Democrats have deployed the filibuster to prevent passage of this legislation because they understand that requiring in-person proof of citizenship would deprive them of a crucial constituency.

As recently as ten years ago, AVR (Automatic Voter Registration) did not exist in the United States. If you wanted to vote in any election, it was necessary to visit a local agency in person, produce a valid form of identification and fill out registration paperwork. Then, in March of 2015, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) signed the first law in the nation providing for the automatic registration of voters using information from the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles. Upon implementation a year later, everyone obtaining or renewing a driver’s license or a state identification card in Oregon became a registered voter unless they retroactively opted out within twenty-one days.

A decade later the National Conference of State Legislatures(NCSL) reports every Democrat-dominated state plus the District of Columbia has now passed and implemented AVR systems similar to the Oregon model. All of these states insist that their AVR systems are models of election integrity, but the objective data suggest otherwise. Oregon has been at this longer than any other state, yet its system was still registering non-citizens to vote as recently as the 2024 election cycle.

On February, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act again for the second time. It would give this country’s too-often dirty elections the power-washing that they desperately need. Before every Federal election, it would make states scrub their rolls of duplicate registrations and non-resident, relocated, deceased, or otherwise ineligible voters.

All of which brings us back to the urgent need to enact the SAVE Act and why the Democrats will continue to use the filibuster to ensure that it doesn’t get a floor vote in the Senate. Without the votes of non-citizens the Democrats can’t garner enough electoral support to recapture Congress or the White House. This means the SAVE Act is quite literally an existential threat to their party. Consequently, Senate Republicans should heed President Trump’s call to terminate the filibuster.

Currently registered voters would be unaffected, but new ones must prove their US citizenship. And everyone must present a photo ID in order to vote. Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer of New York calls this “Jim Crow 2.0.”

How dare Schumer trivialize the pain of black Americans who faced segregated “but equal” bathrooms, whites-only bus benches, and noose-filled trees? When blacks show photo ID at airports today, is that Jim Crow 747?

And shame on Schumer for whitewashing this key detail ; during Black History Month: How ironic the Jim Crow laws which tormented blacks between the 1870s and 1964 were written, enacted, and enforced by Democrats.

According to Pew Research, 76 percent of blacks and 82 percent of Hispanics spurn Schumer’s racial slurs and historical revisionism. Instead, they favor photo ID to vote. So do 83 percent of Americans, 95 percent of Republicans, and even 71 percent of Democrats. 

“A photo ID to vote is not controversial in this country,” said CNN analyst Harry Enten. “It is not controversial by party, and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree.”

Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman notwithstanding, Senate Democrats sooner would gargle molten glass than mandate photo ID. They hate anything that hinders vote fraud, which they have mastered.

To secure honest elections at the midterms and beyond, Republicans must sunset the filibuster; like putting a beautiful-but-decrepit family Labrador to sleep.

Republicans who cherish the filibuster as an embankment against runaway government are correct; if the Senate still included rational Democrats such as Louisiana’s John Breaux, Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman, New York’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Georgia’s Sam Nunn. While in control, they preserved the filibuster, knowing Republicans would do likewise, once they took charge. However, reasonable Democrats vanished with the dot-matrix printer.

This is not your parents’ Democrat Party. Today’s neo-Marxists demolished the southern border. They begged at least 8.7 million illegal aliens to invade America and then showered them with freebies. Contemporary Democrats flatten tires and smash windows to prevent ICE from deporting convicted illegal-alien drunk drivers, armed robbers, gang members, child rapists, serial murderers, and terrorists.

Relentless far-Left Democrats tried to throw Donald J. Trump off the 2024 ballot and into prison. They sicced the FBI on Latin-Mass Catholics and accused parents of “domestic terrorism” when they complained to school boards about grade-school gendermania. Modern Democrats love puberty blockers, steer “females” with penises into women’s locker rooms, cheer when girls amputate their breasts, and snore when fraudsters steal $14 million from Minnesota’s autistic children.

Some 2020s Democrats even did cartwheels after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Others campaigned with and many more elected Jay Jones as attorney general of Virginia. Never mind that he texted fantasies about firing “two bullets to the head” of GOP lawmaker Todd Gilbert as his wife, Jennifer, watched their two young children die in her arms.

Too many Senate Republicans naively believe that these Hamas-hugging degenerates would let this parliamentary procedure derail their agenda. Indeed, 46 of 48 Democrats already voted on January 19, 2022, to junk the filibuster. Former Democrat senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and unanimous Republicans saved it. The next such Democrat-led vote almost certainly will kill it.

Fragile Republicans argue that if Democrats won a post-filibuster Senate, they would govern like unleashed Rottweilers. But if Republicans stay tethered to the filibuster, the next Democrat Senate will trash it before lunch on Day One, anyway. Unilateral disarmament ultimately will buy the GOP nothing but a warm, runny feeling.

A filibuster-free Democrat Senate and House would make every Republican nightmare come true:

• Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico would become states; so why not the U.S. Virgin Islands and perhaps other territories? Four, six, or even more Democrats would join the Senate, likely for good. Ditto their House counterparts.
• Democrats would swell the Supreme Court and pack it with Leftist justices.
• Abortion: Anytime, anywhere, and fully funded by taxpayers.
• Fifteen to 20 million illegal aliens and “Dreamers” would score amnesty, citizenship, and voter-registration cards.
• “Temporary” COVID-era election practices; mass-mail-in ballots, drop boxes, ballot harvesting, early voting, same-day registration, late ballot deliveries, etc. would become permanent. Photo ID? Dream on!

Amid these insurmountable challenges, Republicans could also wave goodbye to the presidency, Congress, and the Court. The USA would become a workers’ paradise sooner than Republicans could say,“Das Kapital.” That America would make Gavin Newsom’s California resemble Javier Milei’s Argentina.

The power to bury the filibuster is like a loaded Glock resting on a table. Soft-headed Republicans won’t touch it. They innocently reckon that if today’s Democrats captured the Senate, they would follow their crazy predecessors and leave the Glock alone. As if.

Republicans must overcome their nostalgia for yesterday’s filibuster; when Democrats were liberals, not Jacobins. GOP senators need to grab that Glock first, retire the filibuster, and then enact America First reforms, while Republicans still can: Their precarious House majority is just a stroke, sex scandal, or special-election upset from annihilation.

Filibuster-free Republicans should move quickly to adopt:

• The SAVE America Act
• A limited-government cure for ObamaCare
• Legislation to turn Trump’s executive orders into permanent statutes
• Census rules which count only citizens for reapportionment
• A 10 percent flat tax
• As much conservative legislation as Trump can sign

All of which brings us back to the Republicans in the Senate. They now have the genuine opportunity to pass legislation which will bolster election integrity and prevent most non-citizens from voting. They also have ample evidence that the filibuster will not prevent the Democrats from foisting the “For the People Act” on the country when they return to power. And sooner or later, they will return to power.

While it’s tempting to blame Senate Majority Leader John Thune for failing to push the SAVE Act, or even Mitch McConnell for keeping the bill bottled in the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, there are still a number of GOP Senators who oppose the legislation based on their “principles.” Their names are all too familiar:

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). What the Hell is wrong with these people? The latest version of this bill as the SAVE America Act, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and its most important difference from the original SAVE Act passed by the House last March is that, in addition to providing proof of ID to register, it requires that voters provide a photo ID when they actually cast a ballot. This requirement is supported by a huge majority of voters, including Republicans, Democrats, and Independents

Yet Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-N.D.) insists that there aren’t enough Republican votes in the upper chamber to eliminate the 60-vote threshold to achieve cloture and bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. The voters came out a year ago and gave the GOP a governing trifecta in the expectation that they would govern more effectively than the Democrats. If the Republicans in the Senate squander this opportunity to keep an obsolete relic of the 18th Century such as the filibuster on life support, they deserve to be consigned to a lengthy sojourn in the political wilderness. The voters will likely reward them accordingly.

The filibuster once served a noble purpose, but Republicans cannot afford to struggle under it now, only to suffer slings and arrows the moment Democrat radicals reign without its restraints.✪