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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I came back to Washington, DC, on Monday afternoon and decided I was going to leave some hamburgers--some Whataburgers--it is a famous hamburger from Texas--with some of the TSA agents who have not received a paycheck now for two pay periods.

We have seen the pictures during spring break and during all the activities in Austin--South by Southwest is going strong. So there is a lot of stress on the men and women who are working in the Transportation Security Agency, and they are not being paid because of the Democrats' obstruction.

In fact, they are objecting to the payment of not only TSA agents but also the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and, as it turns out, one of the premier criminal investigation directorates in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as Homeland Security Investigations.

This morning, during the ``Worldwide Threats'' hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee--this was a public hearing--the FBI Director confirmed that Homeland Security Investigations was a critical part of the interagency process to deal with the threat of homegrown terrorism.

On March 1, we had a gunman go to 6th Street, a heavily populated area where people like to party, and proceeded to kill 3 innocent people and wound 12 others. He wore a sweatshirt that said ``Property of Allah'' and a T-shirt underneath that bore an Iranian flag.

Of course, we are all familiar with the incidents that have occurred in New York, in Virginia, in Michigan at the synagogue, and numerous other places which will be repeated time and time again as long as Democrats decide not to pay the very people whom we are depending on to investigate these cases and protect the American people.

I know a lot of focus has been on TSA--and, certainly, they deserve to be paid and are doing heroic work. And by delivering some lunch to them, I thought: Well, this at least will show some appreciation. Unfortunately, I couldn't deliver them a paycheck. That is all I could do because of the obstruction on the Democratic side of the aisle.

But this is something that I don't know whether the American people or even Members of the Congress are fully aware of; that by blocking the Department of Homeland Security funding, the Homeland Security Investigations directorate, in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department of DHS, is not being paid, which is endangering the safety of the American people. Director Patel of the FBI confirmed that this morning.

This has got to stop. It is hurting a lot of innocent people for no good cause. It is all based on political posturing, and innocent people are being hurt in the process. S. 1383

Mr. President, the Senate, obviously, is currently debating the SAVE America Act. I am grateful to our colleague from Utah Senator Lee for introducing this legislation and to Senator Thune for bringing it up to the floor for debate and vote.

I want to recognize the contribution of my friend across the Capitol in the House of Representatives Chip Roy and others who championed this legislation all along.

It does some very simple things that in a normal world would not be controversial. It says: If you want to vote, you have got to be an American citizen, and if you want to cast a ballot, you have to have photo ID--the same thing you need to get on an airplane or to buy cigarettes or a six-pack of beer at a convenience store.

Not particularly--shouldn't be a controversial matter.

But you know, you begin to wonder, OK. Why would they oppose something that has such broad support among the electorate based on public opinion polling?

Is that because the Democrats believe that illegal immigrants ought to be able to vote and that a person ought to be able to cast a ballot without being able to confirm they are, in fact, the person they claim to be?

I think that is a very troubling matter, and I just think it is Trump derangement syndrome myself. It is almost like anything or everything that President Trump proposes or does, Democrats reflexively oppose.

The Senator from Massachusetts was just here complaining about trying to take out the Iranian nuclear threat.

Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. They have been enriching uranium in order to build a nuclear weapon. They have been building a stockpile of ballistic missiles and testing a space program that essentially will give them the technical knowledge they need to deliver intercontinental ballistic missiles, to ultimately manufacture those.

And our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say this was not a threat to the United States. Well, in this same hearing we had this morning on global threats before the CIA, the DIA, DNI, all the alphabet soup of Federal intelligence community components, they said this was a threat not only to us and our interests but also to our allies in the region. And the idea that we would sit back and do nothing while Iran acquires a nuclear weapon is just sheer madness.

Again, you have to ask yourself, Why would our Democratic colleagues say: ``Well, that is OK. We are not going to do anything when they, the Iranian regime, has had American blood on its hands and is responsible for killing Americans over the years since the Iranian Revolution in 1979''?

And can you imagine them getting access to a nuclear weapon, what that would do to the Middle East and world peace and then acquiring the ballistic missile capability to be able to deliver that weapon thousands of kilometers away?

Well, the very least that I think would happen is all the Gulf States would start to acquire nuclear weapons and we would have a nuclear arms race and who knows what would be the outcome of that.

So I don't know what it is about the way Democrats react to President Trump's proposals. It seems like they want to take the opposite view of President Trump no matter what it is. They wouldn't even stand up at the State of the Union when he said: Stand up if you believe that we ought to enforce our laws and we ought to celebrate the people who keep our communities safe.

And almost all--virtually, all--of the Democrats sat on their hands because the last thing they would want to do is be found to agree with President Trump, even with something as obvious as that. So they picked the side of illegal immigration and nonenforcement of our immigration laws, which proved to be an unmitigated disaster during the Biden administration, and we are now having to clean up that mess.

So it just is amazing to me that we find ourselves, at this particular time in our Nation's history, where we are so polarized and where there is no willingness to try to work together in the best interests of the country.

So here we are, on a bill that would require only American citizens to vote and that you need a photo ID in order to cast your ballot.

Well, our Democratic colleagues are, of course, doing what they usually do under these circumstances and saying this legislation will disenfranchise voters. Well, it will disenfranchise illegal aliens. It will disenfranchise noncitizens. That is the point.

And they don't want to do that?

Well, again, you have to wonder why. Is that because they want noncitizen, illegal immigrants to be able to vote? Well, we know for every illegitimate vote cast that it undermines and dilutes the vote of those of us who are American citizens and who are entitled to cast a ballot.

Well, I don't really get it. They are certainly appealing to a slice of the American electorate that I have a hard time understanding but they ought to at least tell the truth. And the truth is, we are perfectly capable of making sure that this bill does not disenfranchise any American citizen and that every American citizen who is entitled to vote can get a government-approved voter ID.

We already do that in many of the red States like Texas. It is just some of the blue States where they like lax voting integrity laws.

And you have to, again, wonder why that is. And it doesn't lead you to a very pleasant or welcomed conclusion.

We all know, as I said, that public opinion is on the side of this legislation. Seventy-one percent of voters, under a recent Harvard- Harris poll, including 50 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Independent voters, support the SAVE America Act.

A 2025 poll from the Pew Research Center showed 83 percent of voters--you don't get consensus like that very often on any particular issue--but that 83 percent, including 71 percent of Democrats, supported requiring a photo identification when someone casts their ballot.

These are apolitical polling organizations. They are not funded by Republican donors, and they don't have ties to any political operatives on the right.

So the idea that Republicans are somehow trying to ram through a piece of partisan legislation, there is no evidence of that. It is false. It is untrue.

The majority of Americans, including a majority of many Democrats and Independents, support the SAVE America Act and its goals. If there are things that we need to do to tweak the bill to make it better, if our Democratic colleagues would help us in a way that they think would make sure we don't inadvertently disenfranchise anyone, we are more than happy to work with them. That is how legislation is supposed to be written.

So it is shocking to me that none of our Democratic colleagues are willing to vote with Republicans on this commonsense piece of legislation.

Furthermore, the talk about disenfranchisement of voters is simply insulting. It is blatantly untrue. Americans need a government-issued ID in order to drive a car, to buy a phone, to open a bank account, to buy a six-pack of beer, to get on an airplane, and the list goes on.

I have never heard a complaint from any one of my almost 32 million constituents about their inability to drive because of the onerous burden of getting a driver's license, a photo ID. You can't rent a house without a government ID. The American people are smarter than I think Democrats give them credit for, that Democrats really think the American people won't be able to deal with this challenge of demonstrating that they are, in fact, legally qualified to vote, and that they are who they say they are by producing a photo ID. Well, one objection we have heard from our colleagues is: Well, it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote, so why do we need a law requiring proof of citizenship?

Well, if it weren't for the blue States that have lax voting laws-- they don't check ahead of time to make sure somebody is actually legally qualified to vote. Once someone casts a ballot, it is almost impossible to figure out how to identify and prosecute that individual, and the election is already over.

Well, we look at the crime wave we see in many blue cities across the country after they have defunded the police. That is another bright idea of our friends on the left. It has resulted in thefts, carjacking, and murder. All of these activities were illegal, but because the law wasn't being enforced to deter these crimes, they happened.

So just because something is illegal without enforcement, deterrence doesn't occur, and that is why we need a photo ID.

It is also because with the dramatic increase of mail voting, voting by mail that happened during the COVID pandemic, many Americans rightly became worried that this process of voting by mail could be abused. If a ballot is mailed to the wrong address, particularly if it is not solicited, if it is just mailed out en masse to various addresses, there is not much stopping the wrong person from filling it out, forging a signature, and dropping it in the mail. Without an enforcement mechanism like the SAVE America Act to prevent fraudulent voting, it makes no difference that it is technically already illegal. Without enforcement, it is going to happen.

We are blessed to live in a country, a democratic Republic, founded on the principle of self-government, but the essence of the authority that we exercise here in Congress is as a result of the consent of the government. That is where all authority comes from, the American people. And it is antithetical to the idea of consent of the governed that somebody who was not legally qualified to vote can cast a ballot or somebody who wrongly claims to be another person can drop an unsolicited mail ballot into the mail and have that vote counted.

It undermines the very basic foundation of what makes our country unique. Plus, people who are citizens and who are qualified to vote are entitled to know that their vote isn't going to be offset or diluted or undermined by somebody who is not legally qualified to vote. They deserve to know--we all deserve to know--that when we go to the polling place and cast a vote, that our vote is not being diluted by fraudulent voters who are voting early and often or by somebody who is not qualified to vote by virtue of the fact that they are not a citizen, they are illegally in the country.

Now, in my State and in many red States, I am grateful that our State legislatures have taken steps to address this problem, but in many blue States, that is not the case. That is the reason we need a national law to deal with that because of the blue States that are okay apparently with allowing noncitizens to vote and they don't require any identification, so somebody can falsely claim to be somebody else and mail in an unsolicited mail-in ballot.

So I am grateful to our leadership in the State of Texas, Governor Abbott and the rest, who make sure that we have safe and secure elections through secure mail-in voting, and I am proud we have taken this issue seriously and required voter ID. We started doing that more than a decade ago.

But in many States, blue States, as I said, they have not done their due diligence to protect elections by preventing noncitizens or illegal aliens from voting. The American people deserve better than this. It is not enough to have safe and secure elections in places like Alaska and Texas; we need them in all 50 States and the District of Columbia.

Nor is it enough for it to be technically already illegal for noncitizens to vote because, as I said, without enforcement, that is a meaningless requirement. The right of the American people to participate in the process of self-government must be effectively safeguarded in every State across the Nation in order for Congress to exercise the only legitimate authority there is in a democratic Republic, which is based on consent of the governed.

It is based on the fact that we run for elections and we are elected by people who were qualified to vote to represent their views in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

The solution is clear, and it is just flabbergasting that this is even controversial that our Democratic colleagues would be opposed. I have done everything in my power, including supporting the use of the talking filibuster and being open to other reforms to the legislative filibuster, as I discussed in a recent op-ed in the New York Post, in the hopes of passing this bill through the Senate and getting it to the President's desk.

Seventy percent of Americans support the SAVE America Act. Now, the Senate must do whatever it takes for this monumental legislation, this commonsense legislation, to become the law of the land.

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