House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday that the House will pass the SAVE America Act “one more time” through a budget reconciliation bill, marking another attempt to advance President Trump’s signature voting restrictions legislation. “The president has that as a top priority, and so do I,” Johnson told Fox News in an interview. “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.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, also known as the SAVE America Act, requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and to present photo identification before casting a ballot in federal elections, according to Congress.gov. Johnson defended the House version as the “backbone” of Trump’s voting agenda, saying it focuses on these core components rather than other provisions the president has sought, such as mail-in voting restrictions.
The bill has faced repeated setbacks despite Trump’s emphasis on it as a priority. The House has passed versions of the legislation multiple times, but the Senate has stalled action. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said last week that the SAVE America Act is “dead” without enough time to change election laws before the midterms. “Unless they do the work to get to the 60 votes, they know it’s dead, and so all this is theater,” Tillis told The News & Observer. The Senate has only 53 Republicans, meaning Johnson acknowledged that Democrats would need to provide the votes to overcome a filibuster, a scenario he deemed unlikely.
Johnson also addressed disagreement within the Republican caucus over the bill’s strategy. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, has pushed to attach the SAVE America Act to a must-pass defense bill rather than a budget reconciliation measure. Luna blocked a procedural vote last month in protest. Johnson said he and Luna share the same goal and that using reconciliation is the path forward. “Nobody’s mad at Anna, we all want the same thing,” Johnson said. “She’s a team player, she’s a good friend of mine. We’re going to get this done.”
Sources
- The Hill — Johnson’s statement that the House will pass the SAVE America Act again through reconciliation, with quotes from his Fox News interview on July 5, 2026.
- Congress.gov — Details on what the SAVE America Act requires regarding proof of citizenship and photo ID for voter registration and voting.
- The News & Observer (via The Hill) — Senator Thom Tillis’s statement that the SAVE America Act is “dead” without enough votes.
