Republicans, Trump run into Senate roadblock on voter ID bill
Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and their shared base of support want to see voter ID legislation become law, but the last barrier is the Senate, where political reality has...
By Fox News · Fox News
Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and their shared base of support want to see voter ID legislation become law, but the last barrier is the Senate, where political reality has turned the notion into a pipe dream. The GOP’s legislative push to codify more requirements and restrictions surrounding voter registration nearly derailed Congress’ attempt to end the latest partial government shutdown on Tuesday. In an unlikely turn of events, like Senate Democrats’ push to save expiring Obamacare subsidies’ during the last funding battle, House Republicans’ desire to attach election integrity legislation, dubbed the SAVE America Act, to the Trump-backed package this week bolted the issue back into the zeitgeist. SCHUMER NUKES GOP PUSH FOR 'JIM CROW-ERA' VOTER ID LAWS IN TRUMP-BACKED SHUTDOWN PACKAGE Trump, who encouraged House Republicans to stand down from their do-or-die demands, renewed his call to pass voter ID legislation while signing the funding package into law on Tuesday. "We should have voter ID, by the way," Trump said. "We should have a lot of the things that I think everybody wants to see. Who would not want voter ID? Only somebody that wants to cheat." While several Senate Republicans support what the bill could accomplish, they acknowledge the legislation would die on the floor without a handful of Senate Democrats, who nearly unanimously despise the move. "Democrats want to make it easy to cheat," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. "They don't want to do anything to secure elections." The issue at hand, as has often been the case during Trump’s second term, is the 60-vote filibuster. The president has called on Senate Republicans to eviscerate it several times throughout the last year as the precarious threshold has time and again impeded his agenda. THUNE REJECTS TRUMP'S CALL TO NATIONALIZE ELECTIONS, WARNS DEMS TRIED THE SAME Some Senate Republicans, including Johnson, are mulling turning to the precursor to the modern filibu…