Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) vowed on the Senate floor Thursday to stall the save america act, calling the voter ID bill impossible to implement before the November midterm elections. “If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math,” Tillis said, nearly shouting during his remarks.
The threat comes as House Republicans are attempting to revive the legislation through a $95 billion budget reconciliation package that includes $10 billion in election-related grants designed to coax states into adopting voter restrictions modeled on the SAVE America Act. The House Budget Committee voted 20-14 Thursday to advance the framework, with passage on the House floor far from guaranteed.
Tillis, a retiring Republican who has become one of the Trump administration’s most vocal critics, used a whiteboard to detail his concerns. Drawing on his experience implementing a voter ID law in North Carolina when he served as Speaker of the House, Tillis described the breadth of agencies across the country that administer elections and the time required for Congress to finalize legislation before states could implement it. “I have been trying to explain for nearly a year that the SAVE Act, whether it’s the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, the new SAVE legislation that’s being proposed in the House, SAVE goes to Hollywood, SAVE goes to Hawaii, whatever the sequels are, all of them are fundamentally flawed and impossible to implement by this election,” he said.
The SAVE America Act, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when registering and present identification when casting ballots. House Republicans have attempted multiple strategies to pass the legislation, which President Trump has made his top legislative priority.
The bill has already failed in the Senate twice. In June, four Senate Republicans joined all Democrats to block the measure, preventing it from reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome the filibuster. The Senate Parliamentarian also ruled last month that the voting provisions did not fit the rules governing reconciliation bills, which must be budgetary in nature. By converting the SAVE America Act’s requirements into conditions on federal grants, supporters hope to survive the Senate’s “Byrd bath,” the procedure for stripping non-budgetary measures from reconciliation legislation. Budget experts have said that workaround is unlikely to succeed.
Even if the Senate were to pass a $10 billion grant program conditioned on states implementing voting restrictions, the program would not take effect until Fiscal Year 2027, which begins October 1, 2026—after the midterm elections. The federal government would need additional time to establish the funding program, accept and assess applications, and award grants. Beyond the 14 states that already have SAVE America Act-like laws on their books, other state legislatures would need to enact new laws to qualify for the grants.
Trump has refused to let the proposal die despite repeated setbacks. He used his Independence Day speech to advocate for the SAVE America Act and, following Sen. Lindsey Graham’s unexpected death, repeatedly urged the Senate to pass it in his honor. In a primetime address scheduled for Thursday night, Trump was expected to continue pressing for the legislation.
Sources
- The Hill — Tillis’s floor remarks and threat to stall the bill, his concerns about implementation timeline
- Democracy Docket — House Republicans’ $95 billion reconciliation package including SAVE America Act provisions, the $10 billion budget allocation, House Budget Committee vote, Senate Parliamentarian ruling, and timeline concerns for implementation
- C-SPAN — Tillis’s Senate floor criticism of the bill as impossible to implement ahead of November elections
- Fox News — Prior Senate vote failures in June 2026 with four Republicans joining Democrats to block the measure
