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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this afternoon, Republicans will move to bring a pernicious, radical bill before the Senate, the so-called SAVE America Act. At a moment when war is consuming the Middle East, when costs are rising, when ICE agents are terrorizing our communities, and when job growth in America is weakening, MAGA Republicans have chosen to focus on voter suppression.
We all know why Donald Trump wants this bill. He is afraid Republicans will lose in November. Trump says: Pass the SAVE Act, and it will ``guarantee the midterms.'' Imagine manipulating the electoral process to try to make himself the winner when he thinks he is going to lose--not surprising, I suppose, from Donald Trump.
The senior Senator from Utah says:
Republicans will lose power--likely for a long time--if we don't get SAVE America passed.
It is funny. I don't remember MAGA Republicans screaming about stolen elections and voter fraud after the 2024 election that they won. Well, the same rules that governed the 2024 election are going to be the ones that govern the 2026 election. The only difference is that this time, MAGA Republicans know they are in trouble politically, so now they are suddenly saying that the system is compromised and broken and that it needs to be changed.
It is all lies--all lies. And they want to drag down the entire Senate for who knows how long in a vain attempt to pass this bill.
Let's be clear. Senate Democrats will never allow the SAVE Act to pass this Chamber. If a small band of MAGA Senators wants to drag this out on the Senate floor, keep us here through the night, through days, or longer, while stalling all other important business, they can try. It will not work.
MAGA Republicans, Senate Democrats will hold the line as long as necessary because with this bill, democracy is at stake.
I want to be very clear. The SAVE Act is not about voter identification; it is about voter suppression. Under the SAVE Act, every single State would be required to share its voter rolls with the Department of Homeland Security--something even many Republican States do not want to do.
Those rolls would be reviewed by a system designed by none other than Elon Musk and his DOGE, using an algorithm that has already been shown to be deeply flawed.
Millions would be kicked off the rolls for no reason. This means American citizens--many, millions--would be booted off the rolls wrongly. If you are kicked off the rolls, you may never be told. There is no requirement to let you know. Then when you show up on election day ready to vote and a poll worker tells you ``Sorry, you are not registered; you are not in the system,'' what do you do? You can't reregister that day, especially with the onerous requirements for registration in the SAVE Act.
As I said, it is not just as simple as reregistering. Under the bill, Americans would have to run through an obstacle course of redtape unlike anything we have ever seen in voter registration. A driver's license would no longer be enough. A military ID would no longer be enough. You would need something like a passport, which most Americans do not have, or a birth certificate, which many Americans cannot easily find. If you cannot produce these documents, you could be out of luck, even if you are an American citizen with every right to vote. That is almost certainly the majority--the vast majority--of who would be thrown off the rolls.
Meanwhile, say goodbye to some of the safest, most convenient, and most effective ways to register to vote. No more registering online. No more registering in churches. No more registering at college campuses. No more registering at the DMV. No more registering by mail. No more vote-by-mail. Many red States love vote-by-mail. Yet MAGA radicals want to eliminate it almost entirely.
I ask my Republican colleagues: How does it protect our elections to stop people from registering at church or at the DMV? How does it make our democracy safer to tell seniors, people with disabilities, or working Americans they cannot register online and must find their way to an election office, which is something only a fraction of Americans do today--5.9 percent, to be more precise. How does getting rid of vote-by-mail--something red States do, something blue States do-- strengthen democracy? The answer is, it does not.
The SAVE Act is not about election integrity; it is about voter suppression, plain and simple. MAGA Republicans would rather take democracy down than back away from their own rightwing, extreme policies that have killed jobs, started wars, and exploited working people to benefit the ultrarich. Senate Democrats will not let them succeed.
I tell my Republican colleagues: Hear me--we will hold the line for as long as it takes.
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