House GOP's SAVE Act rescue plan hits resistance from conservative holdouts

House Republican leaders are making another bid to salvage the stalled SAVE America Act after a conservative revolt froze floor action last week, but GOP lawmakers behind the blockade are withholding support for the plan.

The House Rules Committee on Monday approved a rule in an 8-4 vote that would merge an annual defense policy bill with the Trump-backed election measure in a rare procedural maneuver before sending the package to the Senate. 

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the panel who was among the conservatives last week that backed the SAVE-related floor blockade, did not vote. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. — the leader of the lower chamber's SAVE protest — argued the procedural tactic would fail to force Senate action, instead calling for a SAVE amendment to be added to the defense bill.

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"The only way to ensure the Senate passes this is to make sure it’s in the bill text of the NDAA, meaning that my amendment(s) must be made an order," the Florida Republican wrote on X. "I’m not trying to be difficult, but this is what 80% of Americans want and what we promised the American people, so I stand by my decision." 

Johnson’s proposal comes after the conservative holdouts rejected his appeal to enact parts of SAVE in another ‘Big Beautiful Bill" last week.

Given House Republicans' slim majority, the speaker will likely need their support to pass a rule later Tuesday teeing up the chamber's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Because procedural votes are typically party-line, he can afford to lose only a handful of GOP defections.

Tuesday’s vote will also advance a spending bill funding the State Department and other foreign operations for fiscal year 2027 and a resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans now refer to as the Working Families Tax Cuts.

If Republican leadership fails to advance the legislative items, the House floor would effectively be frozen and lawmakers could return home early ahead of the July 4 recess.

Johnson warned Monday that continuing the floor blockade would be a "self-defeating" approach.

"It doesn't make any sense," Johnson told reporters. "We have to move forward with legislation and that's what I'll be telling them all." 

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But Luna indicated her reluctance to unlock the House floor until she receives assurances on the SAVE America Act’s fate in the Senate.

"But to, you know, say that we're holding up the process. This is legislating," Luna told reporters Monday, standing next to Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who has also joined the SAVE protest. "If people elected us to just come up here and vote in line with what the party wants, then it would be a whole lot different."

Democrats, who would like to see the rules package fail, argued the GOP holdouts should not listen to Republican leadership because their proposal would be dead on arrival in the Senate. 

"Let me be clear, the Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Conn., said during the Rules Committee debate Monday. "They've already said that merging it with the NDAA bill doesn't prevent that. Nothing in this rule will prevent that."

"There is a 0% chance SAVE ends up in the NDAA because of this rule today," he continued. "So this is a ‘cover-your-behind’ maneuver, if you will."

Under the rule approved Monday, the procedural maneuver would facilitate SAVE’s attachment to the NDAA without requiring lawmakers to vote on it again.

Leadership did not choose a version of the election bill including all the president’s SAVE priorities, such as curtailing mail-in voting and banning men in women’s sports and child sex change procedures. Johnson has yet to ask House Republicans to consider the comprehensive measure, and it is unclear whether a crackdown on mail-in ballots could clear the chamber.

Johnson’s SAVE gambit comes as House Republicans appear to have little leverage to force the bill through the Senate, where GOP leaders say it lacks the votes to pass. The election measure has struggled to win unified Republican support, let alone the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

Trump sharply criticized five alleged holdouts — Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — in a Truth Social post Monday, arguing the cohort "must vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY."

"There can be no more excuses!" he wrote.