Trump's voter ID bill catches unlikely break as McConnell remains sidelined

An unlikely reason has chipped away, for now, at Senate Republican resistance against President Donald Trump’s flagship election priority.

The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has hit brick wall after brick wall in the Senate, and has only twice mustered 50 votes. Still, Trump wants Republicans to pass it by any means necessary.

Republicans, however, aren’t unified behind it. One lawmaker, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has routinely voted against the bill in its variety of iterations, earning the personal ire of Trump.

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"Mitch McConnell," Trump told reporters last month. "He's very disloyal to John Thune. You know, John Thune was a very good person for him. I mean, he's a very loyal person, and Mitch McConnell's against him almost all the time because he's angry, I guess. Probably at me."

McConnell has been absent from the Senate, which is currently in recess, for almost three weeks due to health issues. When he will return still remains unclear.

But without his resistance, that’s one less "no" vote that Republicans have to contend with.

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Still, it doesn’t address the broader math problem in the Senate weighing down the chances of the SAVE America Act passing.

Senate Democrats are unified against it, meaning Trump and the SAVE America Act’s biggest proponents can’t break through the 60-vote filibuster, which has, in part, fueled the president’s demands to nuke the filibuster.

Senate Republicans don’t have the votes to do that, either.

"The only way you could get there is to undo or get rid of the legislative filibuster, and there aren't even close to the votes here in the United States Senate in order to achieve that," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last month.

There is the talking filibuster, which Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has pushed for months, which Republicans have yet to turn to, largely over concerns of floor time being eaten away and fractured unity leading to Democratic wins.

Then there is the budget reconciliation route, which Trump has pushed Congress to consider. While Senate Republicans aren’t leaping at the prospect, the House is moving full steam ahead.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News’ Shannon Bream that he would move ahead with the reconciliation plan.

"We passed it three times in the House. We’re going to try one more time on a budget reconciliation bill, and I think that will be the way to get it through the Senate, and finally, to the president’s desk."

Notably, though, House Republicans have not passed the version of the SAVE America Act that Trump desires, which would include a strict crackdown on mail-in balloting, a ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports and a ban on transgender surgical procedures for minors.

But even the bill’s biggest backers see reconciliation as a far-fetched option.

Lee last month told Fox News Digital that the SAVE America Act was "policy, it's non-budgetary. Therefore, SAVE America itself is not eligible for consideration in a third reconciliation."

There could be alterations, like giving states federal funding to start doling out enhanced REAL IDs with citizenship verification in a reconciliation package, while separately passing a voter ID bill.

However, Lee believed that there was "no evidence that there is a viable path to a third reconciliation bill."

"I hope there is. I would love to be wrong on that. I want us to do that. I think we should do that. But the schedule that we've got, to my great disappointment, is not — it doesn't accommodate any of it."