For the third time in two years, House Republicans have passed election integrity legislation, only to watch it stall in the Senate. But two officials told The California Courier how they expect the SAVE America Act to be passed.
As part of his 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump vowed to secure U.S. elections with voter ID, paper ballots, proof of citizenship, and same-day voting. Multiple versions of the SAVE Act have passed the House only to stall in the Senate. House Republicans are now trying a different route by including the bill in their border security reconciliation package.
“It’s incredibly frustrating that we couldn’t get the Save America Act through the Senate without reconciliation,” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, told The California Courier when asked about the possibility of the move last week.
“I do think that that is the best path to actually getting this signed into law, which is the goal of this entire exercise,” Gill added. “We’re not doing this to just pass bills out of the House that die in the Senate, but that’s what’s happened.”
National Efforts
The effort began in May 2024 when Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced the original SAVE Act. It passed the House by July but stalled in the Senate. After Trump won the 2024 election, Republicans brought the bill back in January 2025. It passed the House again in April, only to stall once more.
Senate Democrats and some Senate Republican leaders drew backlash from the Trump administration and the conservative base during that period. In May 2025, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent, but Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., blocked it using procedural objections.
House Republicans made a third attempt in February by expanding the bill into the SAVE America Act. It passed the House, but Republicans failed to get to the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“We passed it twice and sent it over to the Senate. We need them to do their job now,” Gill told The California Courier. “I think that many of the senators have talked about probably a lighter version of the Save America Act as part of a reconciliation bill. And the reason that they say that is there are stipulations as to what type of legislation can be in a reconciliation bill and what cannot.”
“So anything, in order to be a part of that reconciliation bill, any piece of legislation has to have some nexus to the budget, and you can create that nexus,” Gill continued. “There are ways to do that, and we’ve done similar things in the past. That totally comports with the provisions of reconciliation, but that’s going to be the issue the Senate’s going to have to deal with.”
Gill noted that due to running the Save America Act through the reconciliation bill, it is a “procedural vehicle” to get lawmakers around the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.
With the attachment to the budget bill, the Senate will only need 51 votes to pass the legislation, meaning Vice President JD Vance could break a 50-50 tie if necessary.
However, Republicans still face a potential obstacle: The Senate parliamentarian could strip out parts of the bill that don’t have a clear budgetary impact under the Byrd Rule.
In California
California has faced its own scrutiny over election practices, particularly its widespread use of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and the extended time it takes to certify results. With several contentious races this year, attention has focused on who would win the state’s top offices, including the next mayor of Los Angeles.
Many were surprised when Democratic socialist City Council member Nithya Raman secured the second spot in the mayor’s race, especially after underdog candidate Spencer Pratt, a Palisades fire victim, gained attention during the campaign. Rumors of election irregularities quickly spread after videos from Skid Row appeared to show some homeless individuals claiming they were paid to vote for Mayor Karen Bass and Raman.
Just days after the election, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced he would work with the Department of Justice’s assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, to “conduct a comprehensive audit” of the state’s voter rolls.
When asked about the election issues in Los Angeles during a recent interview with The California Courier, Essayli pushed back on the idea that the DOJ can simply fix California’s election problems.
“People are looking to me, the Department of Justice, to the courts, to sort of fix California’s problems, fix their elections. That’s not our role and that’s not our job,” Essayli said. “There’s a political problem in California. There’s a problem with the Legislature. There’s a problem with people in office. I can only prosecute and enforce crimes. I can only enforce laws that Congress has passed.”
“Especially in this election space, Congress has a lot of power to regulate elections. They can ban vote-by-mail. They can ban ballot harvesting. They can require voter IDs. That’s what the SAVE [America] Act is about. That’s what the president is fighting for in Congress. And really, that’s their job,” Essayli added. “And they’re the ones that need to regulate the elections.”
Essayli argued that while federal action is necessary, California, which has had a Democrat supermajority for over 15 years, has created its own set of rules that effectively tilt the playing field.
“There’s a lot of areas where things are wrong, maybe even slightly corrupt, but it may not be illegal,” Essayli told The California Courier. “And that’s the space we’re operating in California.”
“Ballot harvesting is allowed by state law. Ballot harvesting is illegal in most states. But in California, they made it legal. So when the president says these elections are rigged, he also means like they’ve legally rigged it, that they’ve changed state laws to rig the elections in their favor. So that way they can go do the ballot harvesting,” Essayli added.
What’s Next
The House has yet to vote on the full reconciliation bill, only passing a procedural resolution on Wednesday that directed that the SAVE America Act be included.
Prior to Congress’ decision, Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Lee pushed to cancel lawmakers’ August recess until the bill passes. Lee has also publicly pushed back on Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s apprehension around the legislation.
In March, Thune told reporters he was open to using reconciliation for the SAVE America Act. By June, however, he warned about the Byrd Rule, telling Fox Business that if the parliamentarian strips the bill from the package, SAVE America would not be at a 51-vote threshold. It would be at a 60-vote threshold under the rules.
That possibility has some Republicans already preparing for a fallback plan. If the SAVE America Act is removed from the reconciliation package, the only realistic path left would be forcing a talking filibuster.
The approach is one that Lee has long advocated for, and that hardline House members like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Gill have also pushed.
“The Senate prides themselves on being the deliberative body, as opposed to us barbarians of the House. But if the Senate wants to be the deliberative body, they ought to actually deliberate legislation,” Gill told The California Courier. “So, the Senate right now could get the Save America Act passed … but they need to be willing to use a talking filibuster.”
“That does not require a change in Senate rules. It simply requires senators, I think, to do their job and debate legislation on the Senate floor the way they’re supposed to,” Gill added.
In June, Thune had down-played the idea of using the talking filibuster, claiming that he did not believe there would be enough support behind it.
With the new advancement, the House is expected to vote on the budget bill sometime next week.