The House has voted in favor of a key test measure that will allow a contentious election integrity bill to bypass Democratic opposition. The move is a major victory for Republicans in a long-standing fight over voter ID laws and proof-of-citizenship requirements.
The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has faced significant hurdles in Congress despite receiving the full support of President Donald Trump. The legislation has struggled to gain traction in the Senate, where it requires the support of at least several Democratic votes to break a filibuster and advance to final passage.
However, a new plan put forth by Representative Mike Johnson (R-La.) would allow key parts of the bill to skirt Democratic opposition entirely. The plan involves incorporating key provisions of the SAVE America Act into a $95 billion budget bill, which would then be passed via the budget reconciliation process.
The budget reconciliation process allows the party in power to pass sweeping fiscal policy reforms without input from their opposition by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage to line up with the House's simple majority requirement. However, there are strict guidelines for what can be included in a reconciliation bill, which must deal with yearly federal spending and revenues.
The remainder of the budget bill includes $73 billion for the U.S. war against Iran and $12 billion in aid for American farmers. The second chamber-wide step in the reconciliation process is to pass a framework that directs the relevant committees to craft details dealing with their allocated budgets.
Those details are then put back into a single sweeping bill that must pass the House and Senate before getting to the president's desk for signature. The framework is set to get a vote on Wednesday afternoon, but its passage is uncertain due to opposition from both Democrats and some GOP fiscal hawks.
The lack of spending cuts to offset the increase in the federal budget has raised concerns among some Republican lawmakers, who are wary of the legislation's impact on the national deficit.
