{"id":18891,"date":"2026-02-12T01:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T01:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/targeting-elections-house-gop-advances-the-save-america-act-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T01:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T01:22:11","slug":"targeting-elections-house-gop-advances-the-save-america-act-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/targeting-elections-house-gop-advances-the-save-america-act-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting elections, House GOP advances the SAVE America Act, a solution in search of a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A couple of years ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson made a pilgrimage of sorts to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Donald Trump&rsquo;s ring and hold a joint news conference with the then-former president. It was not, however, a simple photo-op: The Republicans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/trump-johnson-push-solution-non-existent-election-problem-rcna147816\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unveiled a proposal<\/a> they appeared to be rather proud of.<\/p>\n<p>The GOP duo pitched legislation that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. The absurdity of watching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/trumps-johnsons-event-election-integrity-matters-rcna147363\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">two notorious election deniers<\/a> pretend to be deeply concerned with the integrity of elections was a detail the political world was apparently supposed to overlook.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after, House Republicans followed through, introducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, a version of which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/house-republicans-pass-act-solution-search-problem-rcna200681\">passed the GOP-led chamber last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In time, however, Trump and his party decided their own plan wasn&rsquo;t quite far enough to the right. So they overhauled it, made it worse and gave it a new name: the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n<p>Trump doesn&rsquo;t have much of a legislative agenda, but he insisted that House Republicans pass this bill. And as is too often the case, GOP lawmakers did as the White House instructed.<\/p>\n<p>The final vote was 218-213, with Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas being the only Democrat to vote for passage.<\/p>\n<p>The original SAVE Act was an indefensible step backward, and the revised version is worse:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All Americans would be required to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.<\/li>\n<li>Voters would be required under federal law to present identification when casting ballots in person or by mail, even in states that do not have voter ID laws.<\/li>\n<li>Republicans are eyeing new restrictions on Americans who want to vote by mail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The proposal is a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. Republicans have spent years desperately searching for evidence of systemic fraud in vote-by-mail systems, for example, and they&rsquo;ve come up empty. The same is true about the supposed need for voter ID laws: In reality, there is simply no national scourge of people trying to cast ballots while pretending to be someone else.<\/p>\n<p>As for the idea of creating a federal law to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote, the proposal is redundant: There are literally zero locations in the United States where noncitizens can vote in federal elections. What&rsquo;s more, GOP officials have searched far and wide for evidence of noncitizens casting ballots in significant numbers &mdash; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/elections\/trump-johnson-noncitizen-voting-illegal-rare-rcna147567\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">and they have found effectively nothing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some on the right have argued that the legislation is worthwhile anyway, even if there&rsquo;s no evidence to support its goals, in part because it might make the Republicans&rsquo; base feel better &mdash; these voters&rsquo; confidence in the system has apparently been shaken by years&rsquo; worth of baseless partisan conspiracy theories &mdash; and in part because it&rsquo;ll create safeguards against future hypothetical mischief.<\/p>\n<p>Except that&rsquo;s wrong, too. Policymakers are not supposed to add new and entirely unnecessary hurdles for Americans who want to participate in their own country&rsquo;s elections, likely disenfranchising millions, simply because of hypothetical threats and conspiracy theorists&rsquo; feelings.<\/p>\n<p>What&rsquo;s more, as <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/congress-elections-citizenship-voter-id-republicans-17c6e7877b7ba63a08b68a771c92da92\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Associated Press reported<\/a>state elections officials &mdash; from both parties &mdash; have expressed practical concerns about how these costly proposed procedures would be implemented and paid for. The same article added: &ldquo;Voting rights groups have said married women who have changed their name could have trouble registering under the SAVE Act because their birth certificate lists their maiden name.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Despite all of this, the bill passed the House anyway.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal now heads to the Republican-led Senate, where it will need to overcome a 60-vote threshold, which seems exceedingly unlikely. That said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/inside-congress\/2026\/02\/10\/dems-demand-more-from-gop-on-dhs-00772900\">Politico reported<\/a> this week that GOP leaders are so desperate to fundamentally alter how Americans vote that they&rsquo;re exploring potential procedural changes that would make it possible to pass the regressive legislation, despite existing cloture rules.<\/p>\n<p>Watch this space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Steve Benen is a producer for &#8220;The Rachel Maddow Show,&#8221; the editor of&nbsp;MaddowBlog&nbsp;and an MS NOW political contributor. He&#8217;s also the bestselling author of &#8220;Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans&#8217; War on the Recent Past.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/save-act-elections-house-republicans-trump-johnson-voter-id\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson made a pilgrimage of sorts to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Donald Trump&rsquo;s ring and hold a joint news conference with the then-former president. It was not, however, a simple photo-op: The Republicans unveiled a proposal they appeared to be rather proud of. The GOP duo pitched legislation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}