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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, Americans are watching in horror as Donald Trump bumbles this country into war. The latest job numbers show our economy is even weaker than we thought. But what are MAGA Republicans prioritizing in the Senate this week? They are conspiring with Donald Trump to undermine democracy and disenfranchise millions of Americans by pushing the SAVE Act.
MAGA Republicans want to drag this Chamber down and waste time on a bill that not too long ago was considered fringe but now is part of the Republican mainstream. Not a single Democrat will support the SAVE Act. It is a radical bill, and if Republicans try to burn time on this legislation here on the floor, we will oppose them for as long as it takes.
Donald Trump and Senate Republicans know their numbers are sinking badly. They know the American people are souring on their agenda. They know that with each passing day, their prospects for November get worse. So what do they do? Do they change course? Do they try to work with Democrats to lower grocery costs, stop the Iran war, help lower people's energy bills? No. Instead, MAGA Republicans try to rig democracy and disenfranchise American citizens. That is exactly what the SAVE Act is all about.
Remember, all the election laws that govern how the 2026 midterms will operate were in place during the 2024 election--the election of Donald Trump again. The laws that will be in effect in 2026 were the same laws during the 2024 election. That was the election that Donald Trump won. You don't hear Donald Trump and Republicans complain that the 2024 election was rigged.
But now the main difference is that Donald Trump and Republicans are horribly unpopular. So, suddenly, they want to change the rules. Donald Trump said it himself. He said if Republicans pass the SAVE Act, ``it'll guarantee the midterms.'' He is saying: Fix the election so that we can win.
This isn't the first time he has tried to do that, albeit in a different way this time.
Think about that. The President of the United States is saying out loud that making it harder to vote will help his party win. That is how an autocrat talks. That is how a thug talks. That is how someone who knows they are about to lose talks.
Now, MAGA Republicans keep calling this voter ID, but the SAVE Act is not a voter ID bill; it is a voter suppression bill. The SAVE Act would make it easier to buy an AR-15 than to register to vote. Republicans won't tell Americans, for example, that under the SAVE Act, States would be required to hand over voter records to be screened through a DHS system rebuilt by Elon Musk's DOGE squad. Do you think that is on the level? No way.
This is not about protecting democracy; this is about giving Trump and his allies more power to decide who gets to vote and who does not. If, God forbid, this bill passed and your State turned over its election rolls and it went through the system that DOGE has imposed at DHS, you could be very easily purged from the rolls through no fault of your own and nothing you have done. But once you are purged, you may not even know that you were purged until you show up to cast your ballot on election day.
Republicans won't tell Americans that their bill would wipe out the most common ways Americans register to vote. No more registering by mail. No more voter registration drives at churches or on college campuses. No more registration when you get a driver's license.
Under the SAVE Act, Americans would be forced to register in person even though only 6 percent of Americans registered in person to vote in 2022, and Republicans want to make this the only option. They won't tell Americans that a driver's license or State-issued ID would no longer be enough to register.
Indeed, many Americans would need additional paperwork like a passport or a birth certificate. Fewer than half of Americans even have a passport. Millions of Americans do not have easy access to a birth certificate. If you changed your name after marriage, you could run into problems too.
And now, Donald Trump says he doesn't even want vote by mail. Tell that to seniors, tell that to disabled Americans, tell that to Americans who live in rural communities far from an election office. Put simply, the SAVE Act is designed to make it harder to vote and easier to steal an election.
Once again, let me just repeat: You can be purged from the rolls. There is no requirement that you be notified that you were purged. You did nothing wrong. You were the same person who voted that way 2 years earlier.
And guess what. You show up at the polling place, and they say: Sorry, Mr. Jones, sorry Ms. Smith, you are not on the rolls anymore. You had no way of knowing, and then you can't vote because you are just finding out when you show up to the polls to vote on election day. It is outrageous. It is cynical. It is un-American. It is autocratic.
Donald Trump knows that if the election is fair, he could lose. So instead of changing his policies, he and the MAGA Republicans--now, all we see are so many Republicans, too many, seem to be going along, want to make it harder for Americans to vote.
That is who Donald Trump is. He is a bully. He does not know how to persuade. He threatens. He coerces. And now he is trying to do that to American democracy itself.
Senate Democrats will not let Donald Trump ram this bill through the Senate, not this week, not next week, not ever.
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