The SAVE Act, also known as the SAVE America Act, cleared an important procedural hurdle on a 51-48 vote. The bill has advanced. Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted against us, which remains puzzling since she supported the bill's main points, such as requiring American citizens to show voter ID before voting. Thom Tillis was present for the vote.
McConnell is a YES.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 17, 2026
51-48, U.S. Senate advances SAVE America Act
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) March 17, 2026
51-48, SAVE America Act advances on Senate floor. Party line except that Murkowski voted no, Tillis absent
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) March 17, 2026
🚨 BREAKING: The US Senate just voted to ADVANCE the SAVE America Act, 51-48
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 17, 2026
It's time for a TOTAL FLOOR TAKEOVER and Republican senators drawing out debate for DAYS!
Insane an 85-15 issue with the public can barely crack 50% in the Senate.
DON'T GIVE UP UNTIL IT'S LAW! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/TBeuBPq6Vm
Yet, even with betrayal looming over us from the troublesome RINO caucus—McConnell, Tillis, Murkowski, and Curtis—this bill remains on life support, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune has chosen not to impose a talking filibuster. He feared that a) he wouldn’t be able to sustain it, which isn’t unlikely since we have a key bloc of senators willing to derail the plan, and b) it would open the door for Senate Democrats to load their nonsense into the current legislation. Democrats have had it easy in this fight, as most of the bloodsports have devolved into GOP-on-GOP violence (via Politico):
The Senate is expected to spend days, and potentially weeks, debating the bill in a bid to pacify conservatives and corner Democrats who oppose the new election restrictions. The debate is expected to include some late-night and weekend sessions.
But in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, discussions of the bill devolved into an increasingly contentious GOP-on-GOP fight over how far the party should go to try to pass it.
Conservative hard-liners, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), want to force a “talking filibuster,” which they argue can overcome the usual 60-vote legislative threshold by requiring Democrats to hold the floor in order to block the bill.
But after weeks of internal conversations, Republicans have rejected that effort, which they fear could tie up the floor indefinitely and potentially let Democrats hijack the Senate agenda by forcing amendment votes on their own priorities.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to call up several amendments, including a proposal to expand the bill to include Trump-backed restrictions on mail voting, on transgender women participating in women’s sports and on gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Thune’s move will limit Democrats’ ability to call up their own amendments and try to sidetrack the bill. Democrats have other options to frustrate the GOP, however, such as moving to adjourn the Senate or killing the bill.
It’s why the talking filibuster was heavily pursued by conservative elements, despite the high chance that legislative chaos would ensue (via Washington Examiner):
There are two ways the Senate can end debate and break a filibuster on a bill: cloture and the talking filibuster. The talking filibuster was the way the Senate had ended debate before the Senate cloture mechanism became a chamber rule.
Essentially, the ‘talking filibuster’ sets up a marathon of speeches from the lawmakers opposing the bill, in which a senator cannot sit down, leave for the bathroom, or stop talking. Each senator opposing the bill has two chances to speak indefinitely about their opposition to the proposed legislation. Once each opposition Senator speaks twice and all proposed amendments and motions on separately debatable questions are voted on, then the chamber would only need a simple-majority vote to advance legislation.
This allows the Senate to buck the 60-vote threshold needed under the cloture rule and requires the opposition to put up a significant physical fight to voice their opinions on the bill.
The opposition’s ability to speak indefinitely and propose as many motions or amendments as they can could make the process difficult for the Republican majority as well. The majority party needs 51 Senators ready to be in the chamber to vote on motions and amendments as they arise.
This ready attendance — for what could be weeks on end — combined with the GOP leadership’s need to maintain unity within the Republican caucus, has made leaders like Thune skeptical of invoking the talking filibuster. Thune has also voiced his concern over the large amount of floor time that could be spent on the talking filibuster.
Still, this bill struck at the heart of the Democratic Party’s election strategy. You didn’t think they were going to fight like the Japanese on Okinawa on this one. Of course, they were—but so what? These fights are messy, but this bill is popular, clinching 71 percent approval in a Harvard poll. Make Democrats defend why they’re in the uber-minority here, even with their own base.
The flip side of this is that we don’t have the votes. Wish we did, but we don’t, and I think that Thune is trying his best, but some arm-twisting could’ve been rendered on the loser RINOs that are as much of a problem in this fight as Chuck Schumer.
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