Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026: Motion to Proceed: Resumed
Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Mr. President, I said at the beginning of this debate that I was going to use the word ``commonsense'' a lot, and that is because the SAVE America Act unites a bunch of commonsense policies, the kind of things that are just intuitively obvious--or, at least, they should be--and should be getting 80 to 90 votes, or more, here in the Senate.
I have talked at length this week about commonsense election policies like showing a photo ID at the polls and demonstrating that you are an American citizen, in other words, eligible to vote when you register.
Today, I want to talk about a couple of other commonsense policies in this bill, in this case, not about protecting our elections but about protecting our youth.
In recent years, we have seen men--biological men who identify as
Now, I don't think I really need to tell anyone the problems with that. They are pretty obvious. There is the physical danger, of course, that can be posed to women by men competing in their sports.
But more than that, this is an issue of fairness and equality. At the most basic level, every roster spot that goes to a male is a roster spot that doesn't go to a female. That is a high school girl who has lost out on the chance to play high school sports because a male has taken up her space.
And for those women who are on the roster, the presence of a male on the team can, and frequently does, rob them of opportunities to excel. The simple biological, scientific fact is that men possess physical advantages when it comes to sports, things like greater muscle mass and greater aerobic power. And that means that, by and large, men are likely to dominate in women's sport, taking wins and medal opportunities away from women.
And it is not just about the unfairness of losing out on a place on the podium. Being knocked out of medal contention can mean the loss of things like college scholarships. As one female runner who was robbed of multiple wins by a biological male described the situation, ``it robs girls of the chance to race in front of college scouts who show up for elite meets, and to compete for the scholarships and opportunities that come with college recruitment. I'll never know how my own college recruitment was impacted by losing those four state championship titles to a male. When colleges looked at my record, they didn't see the fastest girl in Connecticut. They saw a second- or third-place runner.''
Let me read that again.
That is unconscionable, and what is even more unconscionable is that my Democrat colleagues are apparently OK with allowing this to happen.
With the way they talk about themselves as defenders of women's rights, you would think they would be the first--the very first--people up to bat for fairness and equality for female athletes, but they are not.
Last March, the Senate took up the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, legislation to ensure that women--and women only-- participate in women's sports at federally funded educational institutions; and every single one of my Democrat colleagues voted against the bill. Not one Democrat had the courage to say that women's sports are for women.
As the father of two female athletes and grandfather to a granddaughter who started playing sports, I feel pretty passionately about the subject.
I am grateful for the tremendous strides we have made in women's athletic programs over the past half century, and I cannot believe that one half of the U.S. Senate is apparently content to see those gains undermined by allowing men to take up places in sports meant for women.
With the SAVE America Act, Democrats are getting another chance to vote for legislation that would protect women's sports. It would be nice if this time they had the courage to stand up for female athletes.
I wish this were the only issue--the only consequence of radical transgender ideology--that we had to worry about. But as bad as it is for a female athlete to lose out on a college scholarship because her achievements are overshadowed by those of a biological male, the subjection of children to gender transition procedures is even worse.
In recent years, substantial numbers of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria have been prescribed puberty blockers--cross-sex hormones--and, in the most extreme cases, been approved for irreversible surgical procedures that permanently mutilate their bodies. And all of this has been done with little to no scientific evidence to support these dramatic interventions.
The Cass Review--a landmark, comprehensive study on medicine, gender issues, and youth conducted in Great Britain--repeatedly highlights the lack of scientific evidence to support gender transition procedures for minors. And thanks in substantial part to that review, Britain's national science service decided to largely discontinue providing puberty blockers to children.
And Britain is not the only European country that has reined in its provision of gender procedures for minors--Finland, Sweden, and Denmark have also done so. And a New York Times piece notes that there is reason to believe that there are other European countries that may follow suit.
Meanwhile, both the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association have come out against surgical gender transition procedures for minors, noting the lack of evidence to support their use.
It has become very clear that we simply do not have substantial scientific evidence to suggest that gender transition procedures benefit children. What we do have, however, is scientific knowledge of how dangerous these procedures can be, and the list of side effects is long and serious.
A 2025 report from the Department of Health and Human Services notes that side effects for gender transition procedures can include infertility, loss of bone density, heart disease and metabolic disorders, surgical complications, negative cognitive impacts, psychiatric disorders, and more.
It is unthinkable that we are subjecting children to these dangers before they can have any real understanding of what they are consenting to.
Mr. President, 12- and 13-year-olds cannot understand what it will mean to possibly damage their bones for the long term. And 14- and 15- year-olds are not capable of comprehending what giving up their fertility could mean. That is because they are children. They are still changing and growing and developing, and through no fault of their own, they simply don't have the experience and knowledge to grasp the full magnitude of what they are consenting to.
The Senate has been officially debating the SAVE America Act, which would ban gender transition procedures for minors, since Tuesday; and I have been struck by the near total silence of my Democrat colleagues on this issue during this debate.
Despite their embrace of the extreme sort of radical gender ideology--witness the refusal of even one Democrat to stand up for women in sports--I am not sure I have seen a single Democrat come to the floor to defend gender transition procedures for minors.
Now, they could just be keeping their powder dry for now, but I have to wonder if maybe some Democrats are reluctant to publicly advocate for subjecting children to, in many cases, irreversible medical procedures backed up by little scientific evidence with a whole host of serious, long-term side effects.
Open the 2025 HHS report on gender transition for children, and you come across this horrifying passage:
I mean, just say that again:
We have essentially been using children as guinea pigs. It is unconscionable, and it should stop now.
The SAVE America Act will give every Member of this body a chance to take a stand against the abuse of children, and I urge every Member of this body to vote to protect children from further harm.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. President, the chaos at TSA is reaching a boiling
Tomorrow, America will see the matter crystal clear: which Senators want to open up TSA, pay TSA workers, and end the chaos at our airports and which Senators are going to block TSA funding yet again. If you want to open up TSA, vote yes tomorrow.
Every previous vote offered by the Republicans has tied TSA funding to also continue funding for ICE, without any reform of ICE. This is different. This doesn't tie the TSA to ICE funding because ICE funding is controversial. This does not make the workers at our airports or the passengers at our airports hostages.
Republicans are saying: Unless you pass ICE as-is, without reform, we are not going to help the TSA workers get paid and reduce the lines at the airport.
We are saying: Just do it, no ands, ifs, or buts.
Negotiations to rein in ICE and end the violence still have a way to go. There are some very deep disagreements. Republicans still have not accepted that the American people want legislation--real legislation-- to ensure the kind of brutality we saw in Minneapolis can't happen again. But in the meantime, Republicans do not need to hold the rest of these Agencies hostage, including TSA.
To my Republican colleagues: We both see the chaos at TSA. We both know and would admit there is a lot more work to do on ICE. There is no good reason to keep holding TSA hostage. There is no good reason to reject our proposal to fund it.
We are going to hold this vote tomorrow, and I urge my Republican colleagues to vote yes.
Mr. President, on SAVE, the Senate is in session today, and all we are really doing is wasting time on a voter suppression bill written only to appease the fringe elements of the MAGA base. With so many problems facing our country, the cost of living so high, with people struggling to make ends meet, with the war going on in Iran, Republicans instead are choosing to spend time making it harder for citizens to vote. This is exactly what the SAVE Act is designed to do. It is designed to make it harder for citizens to vote.
Do not listen to the Republican talking points about voter ID. That is a ruse. Underneath the surface, the SAVE Act is a voter purge bill. Most of its core elements don't even talk about voter ID. They want to make it harder to register to vote than it is to register to buy an AR- 15.
MAGA Republicans want to force every single State in America to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security. They want Americans' information to be run through an algorithm that Elon Musk and DOGE could use to kick eligible American citizens off the voter rolls without them even knowing they were kicked off.
When you show up at the polling place, they say: Mr. Jones, Ms. Smith, you are no longer on the registry.
And you say: Why?
They say: Well, you will have to go find out.
That is a disgrace. That is undoing what is deeply American: the right to vote. They want to make registering to vote a bureaucratic nightmare.
They want to end vote-by-mail, end registering online, end registering on college campuses and in churches, and even end registering at the DMV, where, of course, you have to show ID.
That is what the SAVE Act is, and Republicans know it. They know that if the American people are given a fair chance to make their voices heard, Republicans are in trouble.
Mr. President, on Iran, thanks to Donald Trump's war with Iran, gas prices are now nearing $4 a gallon. Experts predict that this weekend gasoline will cross the $4-a-gallon threshold. In just the last month, gas prices have gone up by $1 a gallon. Brent crude is hovering around $108 a barrel, much higher than it has been.
And Donald Trump has the gall to say that prices are ``not that bad.'' Do you hear that, America? Donald Trump is telling you $4 gas is not that bad. What bubble does he live in? How often does he fill up his car with gasoline? When Donald Trump says that the prices are not that bad, who is he kidding? He is speaking like a billionaire. America is being led into war by Marie Antoinette.
And then Kevin Hassett, the top economic adviser to Trump, says Americans' pain is ``the [least] of our concern[s] right now.'' Can you believe this? The highest economic adviser in the Trump administration says Americans' pain is ``the [least] of our concern[s] right now.'' If there is anything that shows how much Donald Trump and his minions are out of touch, that is it right there. Trump and his acolytes are unbelievable. They are so clueless. They are in a bubble.
Meanwhile, the war with Iran is expanding. Iranian strikes on Qatar's energy structure have knocked out 17 percent of the country's LNG export capacity. QatarEnergy says two LNG trains could be sidelined for 3 to 5 years--a staggering blow to global energy markets. In other words, even if this war ended tomorrow--and there are no signs it is anywhere close to ending--the damage Donald Trump has unleashed will take a long, long time to fix.
Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East is expanding, not shrinking. Donald Trump is sending additional warships and thousands of marines to the region. He refuses to fully rule out boots on the ground, a step that would mean more American casualties and even higher costs than he now projects. And this week the administration was floating a funding request of more than $200 billion--$200 billion--to finance this open- ended war. No way; that will never happen. It is a preposterous and dangerous risk. We should never accept giving Donald Trump a blank check to wage war in Iran in perpetuity. Even a fraction of the $200 billion is unacceptable for a war without a plan, without an endgame, without the support of the American people. And, of course, the money could be used for so much better--reducing Americans' costs on healthcare and on housing and on electricity and on daycare.
So much could be done with that money instead of a war that Donald Trump has chosen to wage without even a vote in Congress.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to vilify and bash our closest allies even as he publicly asks for their help. Today, he called NATO a ``paper tiger'' and called our allies ``cowards.'' How does he expect to form a coalition, which he says he needs, if he is just going to spend his time calling them names--calling our allies names?
The damage Donald Trump is doing to our alliances will last a long time and is sickening. He has spent years trashing our allies, insulting them, threatening NATO, undermining the very alliances that have kept us strong for generations. Now, suddenly, after Trump has dragged the United States into a war that is not going his way, he turns around and asks those same allies to jump in and help. What world does he live in? And when the allies don't immediately leap into this open-ended conflict in the way Donald Trump wants, what does he do? He calls them ``cowards.''
Donald Trump's leadership is pathetic--pathetic.
The war needs to come to an end now. The American people have had enough.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.
Mr. President, the Senate will soon confirm Markwayne Mullin to be the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
It is critical at this time that we have a fully functioning and fully funded Department of Homeland Security. The American people need that to keep all of us safe. We are going to do very well having Senator Mullin's trustworthy leadership in place.
Today, the Department is not fully funded--it is not funded at all-- because of the Democrats. We just had the Democrat leader on the floor of the Senate saying he wants to vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security, and he says he plans to do it again today.
Right now, the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, people are
Americans need and deserve safety and security. The Democrats are preventing it. Americans all around the country are on high alert because they have seen multiple attacks by radical Islamic terrorists across the streets of this Nation. Americans have died, and blood is on their hands.
A terrorist forcefully rammed his truck loaded with explosives into a synagogue and a preschool in Michigan. There were staff there. There were teachers. There were 100 children inside. Had it not been for the quick-acting security guards, many of those inside would have been killed. We later learned that that terrorist's brother was a commander in the terrorist group Hezbollah.
Here in Virginia, at Old Dominion University, another terrorist shot and killed a decorated ROTC instructor.
In New York City, two terrorists threw homemade bombs into a crowd. The terrorist admitted to authorities later that they had hoped to hurt or kill more people than were killed by the bomber in the Boston Marathon.
In Texas, a terrorist shot into a crowded establishment. He was wearing a T-shirt that said ``Property of Allah.'' Three people were killed, and dozens were wounded.
It is not just the kinetic attacks; it is also cyber attacks. Iran this week launched a major cyber attack on a major medical device company in Michigan. Because of that attack, hospitals around the Nation had to temporarily pause transmitting vital-sign data from patients under treatment.
The attacks continue, and the Democrats continue to defund our Department of Homeland Security.
The Wall Street Journal noted this week that the cyber attack we just witnessed against the medical device company shows the reach of Iran's cyber capabilities.
The Department of Homeland Security was set up after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. They are there to prevent all of these kinds of attacks, and the Democrats have shut it all down. Because of the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by the Democrats, our Nation is vulnerable to terrorist attacks on multiple levels--physical, cyber.
Republicans stand ready to end this shutdown today. We want to end it today. We are going to vote today.
The minority leader was on the floor, and he said: Well, tomorrow, we are going to have a vote about trying to change committee assignments and move something over there and move it around, and we will just deal with one part of it.
The country needs to be protected. The American people need to know that they are safe in their communities.
The White House has outlined an entire list of bipartisan solutions to address the concerns that the Democrats have raised. They include expanding the use of body cameras for officers and making IDs for officers clearly visible. Democrats have rejected all of these good-faith offers. They rejected bipartisan solutions. Instead, they once again are trying to peel apart the Department of Homeland Security.
This is a comprehensive Department put together after a terrorist attacked us in our homeland, and it is to protect the people in this country. Piecemeal Democrat bills cannot hide the fact that Democrats caused this current shutdown. If they think they can avoid blame for this shutdown of American security, they are wrong. The people understand that the Democrats are standing between their own securities in their own homes and the terrorists who are out there.
I think Democrats ought to pay attention to President Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security. His name is Jeh Johnson. We have all worked with him. He had a warning just this past weekend for the Democrats. He said this:
He went on to say:
Not piecemeal, torn apart, which is what the Democrats are trying to do.
This is a statement of a Democrat. He ran the Department for President Barack Obama, and he is telling the Democrats on the floor: Fund all of it.
Senate Democrats have clearly lost their direction, and they have lost the argument. Even Democrats are saying they are wrong.
One of the components of the Department of Homeland Security is something called Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The American people are well aware of that.
Senator Schumer was on the floor making a comment about them a few moments ago. He said they are controversial.
Well, just a few years ago, Senator Schumer had something very different to say to NBC News. He said:
Apparently, he doesn't think any of it is needed today. Now he wants to abolish ICE. He has said it. Democrats want to abolish ICE. They have said it. They want to defund law enforcement. You have seen the chants. You have seen the people: ``Defund the police.'' ``Defund ICE.'' They don't seem to care about the safety and the security of people in this country. They seem to want to stand more with illegal immigrant criminals than they do with American people. This is a radical position. It is now also the default policy of the Democrat Party.
So what are the necessary functions that Senator Schumer might have been talking about a few years ago when he said ``ICE does some functions that are very much needed''? Well, one of those is called Homeland Security Investigations. They are part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement--the part he wants defunded. He wants it all gone.
Mr. President, 7,100 special agents work for Homeland Security Investigations. They do vital work that keeps America and Americans safe. This week alone, these hard-working agents helped to seize over 170 pounds of methamphetamine in Utah. Additionally, they arrested a child trafficker in California who was trafficking not one but two children. They helped to investigate and arrest an illegal immigrant in Louisiana who was a member of the terrorist group MS-13. That is this week.
They want that entire Department gone. The American people need them. We need that level of security.
Senate Democrats are now defunding the American heroes who stop drug cartels, who stop terrorists, who rescue children from human traffickers.
The actions of the Democrats continue to make our Nation less safe. It is time for them to join us in protecting the Nation's security.
So we are going to vote again today. We are going to vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and we will fund it right away today, fully, immediately. The Democrats are going to have to say whether they are going to stand with us and the American people or they are once again going to stand against safety and security. They are the only ones standing in the way, and blood is on their hands. The American people will hold them accountable.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic whip.
Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, a woman named Kristi Noem came and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We had been asking her to come in and explain her management of the Department of Homeland Security for months. She said she was too busy; we knew better.
We watched one aspect of what that Department was doing with the ICE agents not only in Chicago, which I am honored to represent, but also Minneapolis.
Finally, she weakened and succumbed to our request and basically said: I will come. I will do the Senate on Tuesday, I will do the House on Wednesday, and then don't bother me for a while.
It didn't work out as she planned.
She appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and wouldn't answer questions directly to her about the management of the Department and things she had said and done.
The Achilles' heel turned out to be a $200 million publicity stunt, which she had bilked the taxpayers out of, so that
The next day, she appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and had a similar experience.
By the end of the day, she was finished. Two weeks ago, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, was fired by President Trump.
Clearly, there is something wrong in that Department, and it starts with ICE, this paramilitary force that showed up in the city of Chicago and across the United States and has killed at least two, maybe three innocent American citizens.
Their charge was to go after criminals who managed to sneak across our border and live in the United States. You heard the President's speech over and over again: We are going to get the ``worst of the worst.'' Remember he said that?
The terrorists, the murderers, the rapists, the criminally insane, that is what we are going after. But the record of the ICE Agency is much different. When they take a look at all of those that they have deported and taken into some kind of a holding cell, it turns out that only one out of seven have any kind of criminal record--one out of seven.
So six of the people that they are arresting and detaining and moving off to different detention camps have no criminal record at all. They are not the worst of the worst. They are folks that overstayed a visa into the United States, period.
So she came and appeared before us, and we have said repeatedly on our side, we want to work with the administration to change the standards for ICE so that they are basically the same standards that apply to your State troopers and your hometown police, basic standards of law enforcement that professionals follow. ICE is a far cry from that today, but what we are looking for are changes that makes them comply with the law and the Constitution.
There is a question of funding the Department of Homeland Security. Two weeks ago, the Democrats said: Here is our position. We will fund everything in the Department of Homeland Security, all of it, including TSA, except for ICE, and we are negotiating with the White House. Let's get it done.
Nine times we have come to the floor. Nine times Democrats have come to the floor and said we will fund the entire department, including TSA, including FEMA, including the Coast Guard. ICE, let's resolve by negotiation. We are in the middle of that right now.
Nine times the Republicans objected to that proposal from the Democrats. So to come to the floor now and blame the Democrats because people in TSA are not being paid doesn't reflect the reality and what happened on the floor.
Madam President, now there is also a matter pending on the floor. I will see if I still have a copy of it here. This is the matter that is before us on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is entitled ``SAVE America Act.'' What this proposes to do is a dramatic change in registering to vote in America.
Let me be specific. With this proposal, the proof that you have to present of your identity when you register to vote changes dramatically.
When you look at the second page of this, they start listing what you have to bring in to prove that you are eligible to vote. The first suggestion is a passport. Well, half of the people in America, roughly half, own a passport and half do not. So if you decide you want to get a passport to make sure that you or your son or daughter who has turned 18 get a chance to vote, how do you get a passport?
Well, there is an Agency of the government, the State Department, and you come and pay a filing fee of $165. You can get an expedited approval in a matter of days and weeks for an additional $60, but it is basically $165 for a passport. Let me remind you, half of the people in the United States do not have a passport.
Creating this as a standard of the election in November, can you imagine what is going to happen at the passport office? How many Americans register to vote each year? About 50 million--50 million.
How many passports are currently being issued by the Department of State without this law passing? Twenty-five million. So you are going to triple the workload at the Department of State for people who want to be registered to vote in time for November. How is that going to work? No explanation.
The second opportunity you have to prove you are really an American is to present your birth certificate. Problem: Turns out a substantial number of Americans don't have a birth certificate; they have to obtain one. And, secondly, there is a problem when the birth certificate reflects a maiden name of a woman before she was married or in a hyphenated relationship. And so there has to be a change made there.
In each State there is a cost and a time involved in that process. So this is supposed to make it easier to vote? No, not at all.
What is it that has changed in America that makes us want to dramatically change the laws on registering to vote? Well, voter fraud, according to the other side of the aisle--people who are ineligible; they don't even profess to be Americans; and they are going to try to vote.
And you say to yourself: Well, that must be a terrible problem. They say millions and millions and millions of people are involved in that. So let's take a look at the record.
From 1999 until 2023, 24 years, do you have any idea how many people who didn't have American citizenship were prepared to violate the law and try to vote? Well, each year we are talking about some 50 million people registering, 24-year period of time, the number must be huge. Seven million? No. Seven hundred thousand? No. Seventy thousand? No. Seven hundred? No.
The number is 77 people in 24 years attempted to register to vote in the United States and weren't legally American citizens. Seventy-seven of the millions that were trying to register during that period of time.
So the Republicans are proposing changing the law for everyone, no matter where you are from, no matter what your political affiliation may be for a new standard of proof. It is not necessary. In fact, to charge $165 for a passport so I can prove I can vote is in the nature of a poll tax.
What does the Supreme Court have to say about poll taxes? In the case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that any poll tax was unconstitutional.
The Nation had already ratified the 24th Amendment, which declared citizens' rights to vote in Federal elections ``shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.''
The Harper case involved a poll tax in the State of Virginia. The Supreme Court threw it out. Do you know how much the poll tax was in Virginia when this case was decided? One dollar and fifty cents.
Now, compare that to going out to have a passport issued to you and paying $165. That is a lot of gasoline, $165.
In striking this fee down, Justice William Douglas said, ``the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be . . . conditioned'' on whether somebody has $1.50 in their pocket.
Yet the Republicans are trying to make this the basic standard, a passport, the most acceptable standard under their rhetoric.
Madam President, let me conclude by saying a word about the situation in Iran. We kept asking the administration what their goals were with the invasion of Iran. Do you remember the public hearings, the congressional hearings where they sent in the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, they were interrogated by Senators and Congressmen from both political parties and asked to explain why we invaded Iran?
The reason you don't remember is because it never happened. We invaded this country without any congressional debate.
We are bound by the Constitution, which says in article I, section 8, it is Congress that declares war, and yet we have no explanation formally from this administration and no opportunity to ask basic questions.
I will close with this: 22 years ago there was a vote in this Chamber, a vote to invade Iraq. If you remember,
I was skeptical of that. I was one of 23 Senators who voted against the invasion of Iraq 22 years ago. It was 1 Republican and 22 Democrats, we voted no. It turned out to be the best vote I ever cast. When we sent our forces in there, Saddam Hussein was swept aside quickly, and then they started looking for weapons of mass destruction and found none. None.
And here we go again. A $200 billion first appropriation for this war--$200 billion. If just a portion of that money had been saved for health insurance premiums, helping people pay them in the United States, some 24 million Americans wouldn't be facing a dramatic increase that they can't afford in their health insurance premiums. Madam President, $200 billion is what President Trump is asking for. It is time for us to have that debate we didn't have before the invasion.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Madam President, we are negotiating right now over much- needed reforms for ICE and Border Patrol. The reality, which I think we do all understand is that we are still very far apart; but as negotiations continue, Democrats have tried again and again to give paychecks to TSA and CISA and the Coast Guard and FEMA, Agencies that are doing really important work right now.
In fact, we have tried nine times to get those paychecks moving, both a full-year CR, which Republicans have blocked multiple times now, and after those were rejected, targeted efforts such as the repeated attempts we have made to try and pay TSA workers.
The only reason these workers are going without pay right now is because Republicans are holding their funding hostage so they can try to give ICE even more money, without including any necessary reforms.
That is what the bill Republicans have once again teed up for a vote would do. So Republicans are saying: We will not let you give TSA or other important Agencies a single dollar unless you let us shell out billions of dollars to ICE and Border Patrol, which are already sitting on billions of dollars. Think about how absurd that is.
Republicans won't let us give more funding to TSA, which can't pay its employees right now, unless they can give more money to ICE and Border Patrol, even when Republicans know ICE officers are still getting paychecks because Republicans know Border Patrol agents are getting paychecks.
They know they already shoveled billions of dollars at these Agencies in their ``Big Ugly Bill.'' Secretary Noem went out and blew hundreds of millions of dollars to cut ridiculous ads and plaster her face all over TV. She blew hundreds of millions on new private jets. ICE wasted millions on souped-up SUVs with flashy paint jobs, and they can't even use them.
So what ICE and Border Patrol need is not more money, what they need is accountability. Democrats have been very clear what we are asking for here since late January, and our asks have not changed. We are talking about incredibly basic, necessary reforms. Taking off masks, requiring body cameras and IDs is not some extreme thing. Requiring judicial warrants is not some extreme thing.
It actually is the same procedure the local police use, and we need these reforms because they directly respond to the abuses that have been happening.
With warrants you won't have a random American citizen getting dragged out of their car on their way to a doctor's appointment. With warrants, you don't have so much profiling where ICE and Border Patrol haul the same American citizen away from his worksite twice, not charged with a crime, not part of a targeted action, just hauled away by masked thugs.
With warrants, you don't have so many cases of mistaken identity where ICE drags a man out of his house in his underwear and even refuses to look at his ID. Now, the DHS Secretary nominee just this week said they would use them. That is a welcome surprise, but we need to see that in legislative text now.
And let's talk about why it is important to have ICE follow the same basic use of force standards as our local police.
If Federal agents were following proper use of force, maybe families on the way back home from a basketball game wouldn't get tear gassed and parents wouldn't have to bring their baby to the hospital when they stop breathing.
If Federal agents were following proper use of force, maybe citizens like Marimar Martinez and Carlos Jimenez would never have been shot by Federal agents, and maybe citizens like Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti would still be alive.
There is a reason we have been demanding Republicans work with us to rein in ICE and Border Patrol. Have Republicans looked around? They gave ICE and Border Patrol unprecedented sums of money, and then Donald Trump and Stephen Miller turned them into rogue Agencies.
Republicans don't want to talk about that. They don't want to even address that. But the American people have had enough of this rogue Agency. We need to rein it in, and we are negotiating right now over how to do that. But it is clear it is going to take more time to get there, and we need the White House and we need Republicans to finally address these key reforms.
But there is no reason to make TSA wait for their paychecks. Absolutely none. Democrats are eager to break the logjam and fund Agencies like the TSA and Coast Guard and FEMA and CISA. The offer to fund these while we keep negotiating stands.
I am even ready to make it happen on a temporary basis while we continue working on reforming ICE and Border Patrol if that is what is needed, but so far, Republicans have responded to that offer with the same message they are going to send today. Republicans are saying: No, we will not give you any TSA funding, none, unless you shove billions of dollars at an Agency that we already gave billions of dollars to.
``No,'' they are saying. ``We will not let you send out TSA paychecks unless we can give a blank check to ICE,'' which is already sending out paychecks.
Well, let me be clear: We are not going to give Stephen Miller a blank check, as this bill would do. I am not going to stand by and let Republicans shovel more money at a rogue Agency without having real change in legislative text.
Americans are demanding serious reforms, and we are putting our foot down. So I will be voting no, and I urge my colleagues to join me as well.
Now, I will say we had an effective meeting this week with the White House and some of our Republican colleagues, but the basic challenges remain: The White House and Republicans need to work with us to address these key reforms. To that end, my colleagues and I remain focused on the White House's coming forward with a proposal that really addresses the major concerns I have outlined here today.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Louisiana.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington objected.
The objection is heard.
The Senator from Louisiana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I hear you.
The majority leader.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Madam President, I move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the cloture vote from February 24 on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
Madam President, I move to reconsider the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the mandatory quorum call under rule XXII has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 7147, a bill making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close, upon reconsideration?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mrs. Britt), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Nebraska (Mrs. Fischer), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Sheehy), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Alabama (Mrs. Britt) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville) would have voted ``yea.''
I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Kaine), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Klobuchar), the Senator from California (Mr. Schiff), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 47, nays 37, as follows:
(Mr. RICKETTS assumed the Chair.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 47, and the nays are 37.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, upon reconsideration, the motion is not agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Department of Homeland Security (Executive Session)
Mr. President, today marks the fifth time that Republicans have asked to end debate and allow us to discuss funding the Department of Homeland Security.
So for the people at home that don't keep up with Senate procedures, what the Democrats have actually done again, for the fifth time, is not even let us get on the bill and actually debate it. They have refused to allow us to consider the bill, which is a pretty remarkable scenario when you think of the effects.
For those who aren't as familiar, the Department of Homeland Security was created right after 9/11, the attacks of 9/11. I don't know about you, Mr. President, but I know exactly where I was when that second plane hit the tower, because that is when we knew we were under attack.
We took a bunch of the Agencies that are charged with protecting this country and put them into this very, very large Agency that today employs 260,000 Americans. If this was a private company, it would be absolutely a Fortune 50, maybe even a Fortune 25 enterprise--huge, huge organization.
The one part of the Constitution that is crystal clear is that our responsibility is to fund the government. Yet, for the third time, we now are in either a full or partial government shutdown that the Democrats have initiated because they refuse to do the basic work-- funding the government.
Now, you will see a lot of noise from the Democrats when they say: Well, we have--they acknowledge that they have not funded the entire Department, so they will say: But we want to fund this Agency or this Agency within the Department of Homeland Security.
What they won't tell you--because obviously then they would have to admit what it is they really want--is they don't want to fund Customs and Border Patrol and they don't want to
So you think, well, what do those two Agencies do that would make the Democrats not want to fund them? So let's talk about the first one-- Customs and Border Patrol.
All of us who have ever flown in from a foreign country, you see the person that greets you--that is somebody from Border Patrol, Customs.
Why would you not want to fund that Agency? I think what is interesting is the way the Senate is set up, the appropriations process is meant to allocate money, and then we have committees whose job it is to set the policies for those. But they don't want to do that. They are tying both together. We just don't want to fund--typically, when you don't want to fund an Agency, it is a way of saying we don't want that function any longer.
So they don't want to have Customs? They don't want to have people inspecting packages? We are in the middle of deep hostilities with a very savvy adversary, and you don't want to have somebody guarding our border, checking our ports, making sure these containers don't have hazardous materials?
We have all seen the movies. Those are people from Customs and Border Patrol. I haven't heard one rational explanation from my Democratic colleagues why on earth they would not want to fund Customs and Border Patrol.
Now, of course, it is no secret to anybody that the Democrats have been held hostage by the extremists in their base who want to both either abolish ICE or defund ICE.
So what is ICE? Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is basically broken down into two organizations. You have something called Enforcement and Removal Operations. Now, what do they do? A pretty straightforward mission. If somebody enters the country illegally, a judge gives them a hearing and says: You have a final order of deportation. It is the job of that Agency to remove that person from the country. Is that what they are looking not to have happen any longer?
Then the other one is Homeland Security Investigations. What do they do? I am going to read you the mission statement. It says: Criminal investigations targeting transnational criminal organizations and terrorist networks that exploit U.S. customs and immigration laws.
It seems like a decently important function. You can see it here on this chart. It is 7,000 special agents.
So I wish we would just have a more honest debate here and that my Democrat colleagues would stand up and say: Look, we just want to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We want to abolish the Enforcement and Removal Operations. We do not want--they do not want to take people out of the country that are here illegally; it is that simple. Instead, what they are doing is they are keeping 260,000 people without a paycheck.
I said, and I will say it again today: I find it deeply ironic and, quite frankly, I will use the word ``disgusting'' that we here in the U.S. Senate are getting paid while 260,000 people aren't getting paid because of political shenanigans from the other side.
It is just morally reprehensible. We need to do our job. We need to get the Department of Homeland Security funded. I am going to end with one difference between what we are seeing now and what we saw during the Biden era.
I think by any metric, by any standard during Mayorkas' term as the Secretary of Homeland Security, it was a total abject disaster. We allowed tens of millions of unvetted migrants to enter this country. We had no idea who they were, where they came from, what their intent was, or, quite frankly, where they were going.
Border Patrol was a total disaster during the Biden years, total and complete failure. But you know what we understood as Republicans? It wasn't the fault of the Border Patrol agents; it was a fault of policy. And yet Republicans still funded the Agency.
Because when we are not happy with the executive, we have a few other tools that we should be using. We could have impeached Mayorkas; Democrats unanimously fought against that. By the way, we passed no new laws, and yet our border went from the most open in American history to a border that is now completely zero. Zero illegals entered this country in the last 10 months--zero, not 1. During the Biden years, there was 10,000 a day. Yet Republicans funded Customs and Border Patrol because we knew it was not the fault of the agents; it was the fault of a Commander in Chief and a Cabinet Secretary with Democrat enablers here in Congress that allowed that to happen. Just keep that in mind as these arguments get made.
It is Friday. People should be thinking about March Madness and which their favorite team is, what they are going to do for the weekend, and millions and millions of Americans are doing that. But 260,000 American families are wondering how they are going to pay for that barbecue, how they are going to make the rent, how they are going to pay for the car payment, how are they going to pay for that vacation that they had planned because they have now missed three paychecks.
I hope to get to a point in time where our Democrat colleagues find their humanity because this is what it is about, their humanity, to do the right thing, fund the Department of Homeland Security, and then let's have a robust argument around oversight and how we do it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, with me today is Mr. John Lowery, one of my colleagues from my office.
As the Presiding Officer knows, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have a dispute over funding the Department of Homeland Security. And it is such a serious dispute that that Department is shut down.
Now, every now and then, there is a dispute in Washington, DC, that says something prophetic--something prophetic about the future of western civilization. This is not it. This dispute is silly.
Every single Member of this body knows how important the Department of Homeland Security is. Most people recently think that Homeland Security is border security, and ICE, interior security of our immigration system.
But Homeland Security is responsible for so much more. FEMA is part of Homeland Security. It is shut down. The Coast Guard is part of our Department of Homeland Security. It is shut down.
The CISA dealing with cyber security is part of Department of Homeland Security. It is shut down. The TSA is part of Homeland Security. They are working without pay, and not all of our colleagues in the TSA are working. This is the result, and it is going to get worse.
Now, for reasons that I don't--well, let me put this a different way. Some would argue and the party line is that we are making progress in terms of resolving this dispute. That is not true.
I mean, I know that is the party line and conventional wisdom, and every now and then you will see a reporter report that, but it is not true. For reasons I don't completely understand, for a while my Democratic friends said: We are only going to negotiate with the White House. And they have been negotiating with the White House for some time, but they are nowhere near agreement.
Recently, some of my Democratic colleagues have met with two of my Republican colleagues and Mr. Tom Homan--it happened yesterday--to see if we could make progress. Again, the conventional wisdom, the party line that we are supposed to tell everybody is that we are making progress, but I have spoken directly with the people who were at that meeting yesterday here among just Senators and Mr. Homan. On a scale of 1 to 10--I will describe it as they described it to me--about a minus 17. We made no progress, and I regret that, but I understand it.
Let me see if I can state--I don't say this disrespectfully. I try to--what I am about to say, I want people to know I am serene in saying this, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but we all know what is going on.
Our Democratic friends will agree to open up TSA, thank you. To open up FEMA, to open up the Coast Guard, to open up the CISA, thank you, thank you, thank you. But they haven't agreed, despite concessions on our side, to open up ICE. And they are not going to. It is not going to happen in your or my natural lifetime.
And if you have been following this debate and you understand the politics,
Parties have wings, factions within their parties. I am a Republican; we have factions. Democrats also have factions. And a specific faction of the Democratic Party right now is in control. That is just a fact.
You could call it the progressive wing; some call it that. The more cynical call it the loon wing of the Democratic Party. I on occasion have referred to it as the Karen wing of the Democratic Party. The Karen wing wants to defund ICE, and they will accept nothing less.
Now, this is the same wing of their party that also wanted to defund the police. How did that work out for us? This is the same wing of their party that has a very novel way to reduce the crime rate in America: Just don't prosecute anyone, and our crime rate goes to zero.
Now, I don't mean to paint with too broad a brush. Not all my Democratic friends agree with the loon, the Karen wing of their party-- they don't--just like not all Republicans are part of the factions in my party. But it is a fact that the Karen wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendancy, and it is firmly in control.
And any Democrat--we all know this--that agrees to any kind of compromise with respect to ICE is going to be punished to the rest of their natural lives. They can't do it, and they are not going to.
Now, we can keep having meetings and discussing it; we have been doing it for weeks. Most of these meetings could easily be accomplished with an email. I have been part of the discussions in our conference. I am convinced that listening to the same thing over and over and over again is lowering my IQ, when we know that nothing is going to resolve this because my Democratic friends politically can't agree to a compromise about ICE.
So here is what I think we ought to do: I think that we should accept the Democrats' offer to open up TSA and to open up FEMA and to open up Coast Guard and to open up and fund CISA. Let's get that done. Let's shorten these lines, and then the day after we do that, Republicans need to file a reconciliation bill, which is the same way we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, and on our own, we need to come up with a budget for ICE. It is the only way to solve this problem.
Now, as the Presiding Officer knows, under the Budget Control Act, we can pass legislation. There are parameters on us, but that only requires 51 votes. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. Under the rules, we are allowed to do two more reconciliations, so we have two bullets left. For reasons that I don't completely understand-- well, strike that. I think I do understand. I just don't agree with them--some on my side are reluctant to do any more reconciliations. And they are hard, OK? I know they are hard. They are hard for my Democratic friends when they do it, and they are hard for us when we do it. You know, that is what we were sent here for, is to do hard things. I mean, med school was hard, but we still have a lot of great doctors. We ought to do our job. That is the only way I can see that we are going to be able to break the stalemate.
So let me say again what I would do if I were King for a day. I am not, and I don't aspire to be. I would accept my Democratic friends' offer to immediately open up the TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, the CISA-- every part of the Department of Homeland Security except ICE. I would stop looking reality in the eye and denying it and accept the fact that my Democratic colleagues, because of their internal politics, will never be able to reach an agreement with respect to ICE. It is not going to happen. In the meantime, these lines get longer.
So, once we can get that agreement with our Democratic colleagues, the very next day, we start a resolution in the Budget Committee, and we do a second reconciliation bill. We fund ICE and border security-- what is still shut down in Homeland Security--like we want to. I would welcome my Democrats to work with us on a bill, but they will not. We only need 51 votes to do it. Then the government--all of government--is back open.
Now, there are other things that we could do in that reconciliation bill. I have talked about them, and I am not going to repeat what I said yesterday. My side feels very strongly about the SAVE Act. We believe that only Americans--citizens of our country--should be able to vote, and we believe that you shouldn't be able to vote unless you can prove you are who you say you are.
My Democratic colleagues, in my trying to be as serene and objective as I can, come back and say: Yes, but there is another side of this argument. It is already against the law to not be a citizen and try to register.
And I understand that.
Then they come back and make the point: Well, you cannot show me where we have had a lot of instances of illegal immigrants actually voting.
And I understand that--those are fair points--but that is not what we are fighting about.
What we are fighting about is that President Biden, for whatever reason, admitted between--I don't know how many--8 million, 12 million, 15 million, 20 million people illegally into our country. He did--we all watched him do it--and we don't even know where these people are. We don't. Some of them were children. We don't know where all the children are. We don't.
I am not saying all of those folks were bad people. I am not saying that. A lot of them were economic migrants. They just wanted better lives, and so they wanted to come to America. They chose not to do it through legal immigration. If they would do it legally, we could consider admitting them--we admit a million people a year of our world's neighbors to become American citizens--but they came illegally because, frankly, President Biden said to do it, and they did it.
Not everybody was Cinderella who came in. Some people who came in were criminals. They were murderers. They were rapists. They were drug dealers. They were sex traffickers. We all know that. That is what our ICE, right now, is trying to do. It is trying to find these people who shouldn't be in any country--their own, ours, anywhere. They ought to be jailed and fined.
But here is my point: As a result--and we all saw it happen, and the American people saw it happen. They get it. The American people may not read Aristotle every day--they are too busy earning a living--but they get it. And a whole bunch of Americans believe, whether it is true or not--and I am not saying it is true. I am not saying it isn't true because I think some of my Democratic colleagues believe this--but many Americans--millions of Americans--have concluded that this was all by design; that these 8, 10, 15, 20 million people who were admitted illegally into America was a way to try to bolster the Democratic Party. So these folks will be beholden to the Democratic Party and will try to vote and/or, once they become citizens, if they become citizens, will vote for Democrats.
Again, some of the commentators who go catatonic and foam at the mouth when I talk about this--but we all know it is true--call this the replacement theory. I am not saying all Democrats believe that, and I am not here to say it is true or not, though I think there are some of my Democratic friends who believe that. But that is not the point. The point is the American people believe it, so they no longer trust our electoral system, and our elections are not worth a damn if people don't accept the result. If they don't trust the system, they are not going to accept the result.
That is why we are moving the SAVE Act. I support it unconditionally. We are going to have difficulty passing it. That much is clear. So, as part of a reconciliation bill for us to get ICE back up and running, I would include the SAVE Act as part of that reconciliation bill as well. We wouldn't need 60 votes. We wouldn't need 55 votes. We would only need 51 votes. We passed the One Big Beautiful Bill with 50 votes, with the Vice President breaking the tie.
Again, I feel like I am repeating some of what I said yesterday.
Some of my colleagues are going to say: Kennedy, you know, you need to back away from the crank. You can't do this through reconciliation. You can't do the SAVE Act through reconciliation.
And I tell them: I have been here 10 years, and we can do what the Parliamentarian says we can do. I have seen measures get approved under the Budget Control Act--we call it a Byrd bath--that I thought didn't have a chance, and I have seen others not get approved that were slam dunks.
As I said, I am in the minority on this even among my Republican colleagues. I don't mean this to sound bad, but sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side. I am not calling my colleagues fools, but I am saying this is worth a try. I would go get a really smart lawyer and ask him to help us craft a SAVE Act that can survive a Byrd bath. I would do those two things in reconciliation or at least open up ICE through reconciliation. We don't need to do it with Democratic support.
I have been thinking about this for a while. Senator Cruz talked about this much more eloquently than I did at our luncheon yesterday. I hope Ted will come down and share with you, at some point, his thoughts on it. I see Senator Cornyn here. They are two pretty smart lawyers who could help us craft something.
I just wanted to come spend a few minutes and offer my point of view on that.
I thank the Presiding Officer for hearing me out and for being serene and patient and all that other good stuff.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, I came down to the floor to talk about the SAVE Act, but before I do so, I am reminded that, over the last 10 days, my Republican colleagues have blocked paying TSA agents on at least five occasions. The number five was used earlier to talk about some other procedure, but on five different occasions, Republicans blocked paying TSA agents.
Now, I certainly hope that my Republican colleagues who are not in Washington, DC, today--because anyone watching C-SPAN or the proceedings earlier might be wondering why the proceedings were open so long. They were open because my Republican colleagues were worried that they didn't have quorum. They talk about 51 votes for one thing or another. They are not here today.
So what I would ask my Republican colleagues--wherever you are in America; I hope you are with family--is that, when you go to the airport and you walk by those TSA agents, you have the courage to tell them why you blocked paying them. This could have been done.
I very much appreciate the words of my colleague from Louisiana just a few moments ago. Any one of them could offer unanimous consent right now. I would agree to it, but I would bet my life that one of my Republican colleagues would object to paying the TSA agents if it were offered right now. That is the truth.
One of my colleagues just talked about people voting who are not citizens. It is a crime. It is illegal. It is against the law. Enforce the law. If there is a concern about something that is happening, then stop it. I am surprised one of them has not offered a piece of legislation that says that American citizens should stop at a stop sign. Maybe that is not the law just yet. We should be clear about that if that is what we are trying to do here.
But come on, man. If there is disagreement, stop holding these other folks hostage. Pay the TSA agents. Get FEMA funded. Get CISA funded. Get the Coast Guard funded.
My Republican colleagues were very happy when the President was doing whatever he was doing around Venezuela. I asked the Admiral of the Coast Guard if he had been included by the Secretary of Defense in any of that work. His response was no. That is their job. If there is agreement, let's move forward and get that done.
I appreciated the debate yesterday with my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Michigan. I thought there was some agreement to say: Let's move forward. Let's get this done.
I appreciate what my colleague from Michigan said: Let's get locked in a room and not leave until we figure it out.
That was an old adage from a former Governor from New Mexico, Bruce King.
Bruce, who was a cattle rancher, always said: Lock them up in a barn, and don't let them out until they can figure things out.
Maybe we should do that.
Well, I am here on the floor today to talk about a piece of legislation that many of my colleagues have been talking about, and it is the reason that we are here today. We are supposed to be in Washington, DC, today as U.S. Senators, having a debate about a piece of legislation.
But, again, I hope the journalists up there on the third floor or those who are in the room are writing about the number of Republicans who aren't here. If this is so important to Republicans, where the hell are they? Because they are not here, and someone needs to call this out.
Now, I asked the Parliamentarian if there were some words that I could use earlier because I have come to the practice of calling some things ``manure'' and ``fertilizer'' and things, but I found out today that I can say ``bullshit'' on the Senate floor, and maybe it is about the time someone were to do this--because come on, y'all, if this is important enough to be here, then get your colleagues back to Washington, DC, and let's get to work, because they are not here.
I will yield to you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Are all of your Democrat colleagues here, because, by our count, there are nine missing.
Senator Moreno, it takes 51 votes for y'all to move on any of your procedures. The Republicans aren't even here for something that is important.
So we are willing to call our Members back. Are you willing to call your Members back from the California fundraiser that they are doing this weekend?
I think everyone should be back here. I am here, sir.
So I look forward to you having your nine Democrat colleagues back from the posh California--
Reclaiming my time, Mr. President.
I would ask all my Democratic colleagues and all of my Republican colleagues and all of the men, wherever they are, to come back to Washington, DC, and let's do the work.
Will you yield for another question?
I will yield in a little bit, sir. I have a lot to say right now. I will give you a few moments in a bit, Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has the floor.
I appreciate that, Mr. President. Thank you for that. Sometimes I forget the rules around this place.
Now, getting back to the SAVE Act, you know, yesterday, I was part of a press conference with some of my colleagues, and one of my constituents called me up and said: You know, the name of that piece of legislation should be called ``Saving Republicans' Behinds Act.''
And the reason that I think that holds true is the only thing this is good for is for Republicans to throw a bunch of people off the voter rolls--namely, 67 million women across the country who may have changed their last name. Some of them may have gotten married. That is what happens in America. Sometimes we take our partner's name, our spouse's names, as well. Sixty-seven million women would be thrown off the voter rolls.
My Native American brothers and sisters' Tribal IDs would not be respected. Many of my Native American constituents were born at home. They didn't go to vital statistics. They were born in generational homes.
Some of my colleagues in this room also represent First Nations, and they know the truth about this.
So throw Native Americans off the rolls. Throw women off the rolls. Let's do what President Trump said. President Trump said out loud to a bunch of my Republican colleagues--I don't know if you were down at his resort, wherever they were--but he told them: If Republicans pass the SAVE Act, it will guarantee that Republicans win in November of 2026.
And then he went further. He said: and for the next 50 years.
Well, thank you for telling the truth. Thank you for telling the American
Now, Donald Trump, when he made those intentions clear, he also said that Republicans should just try to rewrite the rules. President Trump said that Republicans should just take over these elections. President Trump has already threatened insurrection rule here and there. President Trump has also said he is going to send ICE agents across the country to ballot places.
There was a hearing this week where Tulsi Gabbard, who is supposed to be in charge of intelligence in America--that is kind of an oxymoron. She was sent down to look for ballots in Georgia, something about a stolen election in 2020.
Now, I look around the room. At least two of my colleagues that are in the Chamber right now were here on January 6. I was here as well.
This notion of the President not buying the outcome of the election because he didn't win--bring it back to where we are today and the SAVE Act: another power grab. Take away the right to vote for American citizens.
Now, Republicans know something today that I know to be true as well: that the Republican agenda isn't working, and that is bad for the American people.
If you don't believe me, go to a grocery store with some of your constituents. Chat with them after church. Go to the ball game, but take a few extra bucks because that hotdog is not going to cost you a buck fifty anymore. It is going to cost you 5, 6, 10 bucks.
American people, when they are trying to get some groceries for the kids, they go to the checkout line, and they realize that maybe they put too many things in the grocery cart because everything got more and more expensive--Trump tariffs, this and that.
There is nothing happening to lower the costs for the American people, and what I hope my brothers and sisters across the country realize today is that if Republicans in the majority in the Senate want to do something and bring it to the floor, they do it. They are doing it right now, even though a bunch of Republicans are not in Washington, DC. We are on the floor talking about the SAVE Act.
I wish they had the same gumption to lower prices for the American people, to hold this President accountable. Bring that legislation to the floor.
And maybe one of my Republican colleagues will surprise me and offer a unanimous consent to pay the TSA agents. I am going to stick around for that one because I look forward to hearing that we are going to do that one here as well.
So just as a reminder, this legislation would also empower the Department of Homeland Security to get their hands not just on Social Security information and on IRS information, but now on voting information.
What my Republican colleagues want to do is give these out-of-control ICE agents--the same ones that killed two of our American citizens, our brothers and sisters in Minnesota; the same out-of-control agents that are busting American people's car windows open, busting into people's houses without a judicial warrant--those same folks, that is what this legislation will do, hand that nonsense over to them.
But, look, let's not forget that the Trump administration has shown that it is willing to lie and abuse its power. President Trump keeps joking over and over and over about a third term. And every time I bring it up, my Republican colleagues say: Oh, he is just joking. He doesn't really mean it.
Well, I wish that was true.
I am going to give some advice to my Republican colleagues, if they are willing to listen. Some of them are up for election this year.
I am reminded of stories that many of us maybe heard firsthand--I hope all of us have read--about a colleague that some of us served with as a Member of the House of Representatives. His name was John Lewis.
John, a civil rights giant, a civil rights hero, a man who stood arm in arm with strangers to stand for our rights, to make sure that--no matter who we were as American citizens, the way we spoke, the color of our skin, where we were from--we could vote; that no longer would the right to vote be taken away from us. He stood on that bridge in Selma, where thousands of Americans were bloodied and beaten and left for dead--that John Lewis.
The SAVE Act would undo the work of these civil rights activists and giants that fought for all of us.
Now, in our democracy, voting should be accessible for every eligible American, no matter who they support. But what congressional Republicans only want to happen is you can vote in America, but only if you vote for them.
So here is my advice: If Republicans want to win some more elections, they should stop taking food away from seniors, children, and veterans. That is something we should agree on. They should stop taking away tax credits that make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans. I am not even going to remind you all of my fight 4 years ago when I survived a stroke, of how hard it is to get care and how expensive it is.
Maybe stop emboldening untrained ICE agents from smashing in Americans' car windows and illegally entering American citizens' homes to kidnap American citizens. That is probably good too.
And stop leaving behind our farmers and ranchers--enough with the bandaids. Let's work on some things together here. The farm bill is something that we could still do, and I hope we do it.
Stop allowing this President to keep raising prices on families with tariffs and illegal wars. That is something that a lot of my colleagues agree on. Some of them have voted to stop this stuff.
So to my Republican colleagues, if any of you are still wondering how I am going to vote on this bill, I will be voting no.
And to the American people, my Republican Senator colleagues should too.
Donald Trump doesn't get a third term. He does not get to choose who votes and who doesn't when they are American citizens. In America, people decide who is going to represent them.
Department of Homeland Security (Executive Session)
Mr. President, I don't think our friend from New Mexico will be shocked to hear me say that I am not going to be taking his advice. I know he is very concerned about Republicans in the next elections and our
What I have a hard time understanding--and the argument that our colleague is making--is they are willing to fund everything at the Department of Homeland Security except the people who enforce our immigration laws.
But this is very consistent with the policies of the Democrats because they are the party of ``defund the police.'' They are the party of ``abolish ICE.'' They are the party of ``now don't pay ICE'' and ``don't enforce our immigration laws.''
So the reason why the TSA agents are not being paid is because we have voted multiple times to pay everybody who is working on behalf of the American people--all the patriots who are currently working-- whether they are TSA agents or they work for Homeland Security Investigations, which does counterterrorism investigations.
You know, these are very dangerous times. We have had multiple terrorist attacks in places like Austin, where I live, and in New York, Michigan, Virginia. And we heard from the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI Director, and others that we could expect more of these sleeper cells or people who are already here, who came in during the Biden administration, to become radicalized and lash out and kill more Americans.
And those people aren't being paid either.
And they also objected to paying the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Heaven forbid that we have a hurricane or tornadoes or floods or some other natuarl disaster because the men and women of the Federal Emergency Management Agency will not be available because they have either been furloughed--in any event, they will not be paid--while Democrats persist in insisting that our immigration laws not be enforced because they don't want ICE--the law enforcement agents who enforce our immigration laws--to be paid. It is that simple.
Here is another thing I don't really understand. I have seen a number of polls ranging from 70 to 80 percent of Americans who support the SAVE America Act. I am surprised it is that low. When you think about what it is, it says that you have to be an American citizen to vote, and when you show up at the polls, you have to produce a photo ID. We have given many speeches talking about how common sense that is.
But if you are opposed to those requirements, it makes me wonder: Do you think noncitizens should be able to vote? Do you think fraudsters who claim to be someone they are not ought to be able to cast a ballot? I don't know what the rationale is.
They say we are disenfranchising American citizens. Is that why 70 to 80 percent of Americans support it? They support being disenfranchised? It makes no sense whatsoever. Yet Democrats persist in their folly.
I think really what this boils down to, as I have said before, is that anything that President Trump is for, they are against.
Do you remember at the State of the Union, the President asked people in the audience to stand up if they supported our law enforcement officers--the people who put their lives on the line to enforce our laws and maintain public safety? Every single Democrat sat on their hands. I mean, isn't there anything that comes out of President Trump's mouth that they could find their way to agree with no matter how self- evidently true?
You know, when President Trump took the courageous move to take out Iran's nuclear program, the Commander in Chief ordered our incredible military to fly 30 hours from Missouri and drop a bunker buster bomb down a ventilation shaft in a nuclear program facility in Iran. It makes me proud of our men and women in uniform.
Then when Nicolas Maduro in Caracas--a fugitive from justice, somebody who was indicted in Federal court in New York--when law enforcement needed to arrest him, they were supported by our men and women in uniform again, who, almost miraculously, to my mind, gave cover to the law enforcement officers who went in and extracted him to bring him to justice in New York.
So on almost every occasion, no matter how common sense, no matter how proud it makes me of our President and our military to keep the Nation free of the No. 1 state sponsor of terror, who is seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon, they take the other side. It is really amazing.
President Trump has this amazing power to force normally reasonable, rational individuals to take crazy positions for no other reason than they oppose President Trump, and that includes commonsense provisions like only American citizens can vote.
I thought our colleague from Louisiana did a nice job of sort of laying the predicate--I think the Senator from Ohio did the same--and pointed out the millions of people who came into the country during the pendency of the Biden administration, during his open border policies, unvetted--many good people who want nothing but a better life, but we don't know who came in for sure. We do know that it wasn't all good people who wanted to work and seek a better life here. It included criminals, sex offenders, drug traffickers, murderers, terrorists. And now we are paying the price for that.
When we say that we want to be doubly sure that only American citizens can vote, they say: No, that is disenfranchising people from voting.
I even heard our colleagues across the aisle say: Well, it is already illegal. There are a lot of things that are illegal, but if you don't enforce it, people get away with it.
Well, the argument of our colleagues is, again, that the vast majority of Americans who support this legislation are trying to disenfranchise themselves. How ridiculous can you be?
Then we hear the argument that it is just too hard. It is too hard to come up with the papers that you need in order to prove you are an American citizen--a marriage license, a birth certificate, a passport, some other form of identification.
Two days ago, the Senator from Maryland came to the floor and said he opposed the SAVE America Act because only about one-half of Americans have a passport. He then went on to say that means that only half of the American citizens that are preparing to go out to vote will be able to vote.
Well, as I mentioned yesterday--and I know it has been repeated ad nauseam by my colleague from Utah and others--there are other forms of acceptable ID. Unfortunately, some of our Democratic colleagues have come out here and misrepresented what is in the bill.
Americans can present enhanced driver's licenses, a REAL ID-compliant driver's license like I have in my pocket, a State ID card, a certificate of naturalization, or military identification card. If they have none of those, they can pair a normal photo ID with their birth certificate, a consular report of a birth abroad, or other similar documents.
In fact, if they still have legitimate concerns rather than excuses for this commonsense law, they can work with us, and we could tighten it in such a way that nobody would be disenfranchised, but they refuse to do that.
Everybody knows voter ID is common sense. Everybody knows you need a photo ID to get into a Federal building. You even need to get one to go into the Democratic convention, to buy a six-pack of beer, to buy cigarettes, to get on a plane--the list goes on and on and on and on.
So the excuses that our colleagues are throwing up saying, ``Oh, it is just too hard for us to produce a photo ID; it is going to prevent people from being able to vote''--no. What it is going to mean is that when somebody votes by mail--because some States send ballots to individuals without those individuals requesting them, and then they claim to be someone they are not and cast a ballot. What it will mean is that we will be able to identify those people who should not be voting and prevent them from doing so.
It is not just about preventing people who shouldn't be able to vote from voting; it is about them diluting your vote, because for every illegitimate ballot that is cast, that means it undermines and dilutes or offsets a legitimate vote and ballot.
Our Democratic colleagues act like this is some sort of fanciful innovation nobody had ever heard of before--a
Surely no one enjoys paperwork, but the simple fact of life is that sometimes you have to fill out a form and show an ID to do something that is important. We do it to go to the doctor or dentist or travel or to start a new job. When things are important enough to us, we do what is required to make them happen, and what could be more important than voting?
You know, the authority that we exercise on behalf of the people who vote for us and elect us is called the consent of the governed, which is the source of all legitimacy in government. This isn't just my idea or some other Senator's idea or Congressman's idea; it is because we represent people, and they have consented--by electing us to represent them, the governed have consented, in effect, to the laws that we pass. But when people who are not qualified to vote cast a ballot or when fraudsters claim to be somebody they are not and cast a ballot, it undermines the whole fabric and foundation of our constitutional system.
I will make a deal with anybody in Texas that I am sure the great Senator from Pennsylvania or Ohio or Utah or any other Members of the Senate--I have a great constituent service office in Dallas, TX. They do magnificent work. They have won awards. So if you have a problem with your passport, with your VA benefits, with immigration, whatever, we have people available, with a phone call or a stroke of a keyboard, who will help you.
If you are somehow unsure about how to get the paperwork you need in order to demonstrate you are an American citizen and qualified to vote, we will help you. We will make sure you have that documentation. We will make sure you are able to demonstrate that you are an American citizen.
If you have a problem getting a photo ID in Texas--admittedly a red State, so we do have voter integrity measures in place, like photo ID-- if you don't have a driver's license, you can get a free photo ID just for the asking. It doesn't cost you anything.
You know, I frankly find the argument of our friends across the aisle insulting because they act as though the American people are too lazy, too dumb, or too incompetent to do the basic things you need to do in order to meet the terms of the SAVE America Act. And I know that is not true, but that is how they act--or at least that is what they claim.
I have full confidence that all Americans who are legal citizens can rise to the demands of self-government by making sure they can demonstrate that they are, in fact, American citizens and acquiring a photo ID from some source that is readily available that will help you, if you have difficulty, in order to cast your ballot.
The truth is, the SAVE America Act is common sense. That is why you see broad polling support among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. It is supported by more than 70 percent of the American public. So if it was true that this bill would disenfranchise voters, you are, in effect, saying 70 percent of Americans want to disenfranchise themselves. What a ludicrous argument that is.
What is more, passing this bill would strengthen and honor our 250- year tradition of self-government. By opposing this bill, not only are Senate Democrats placing themselves on the wrong side of public opinion but on the wrong side of history. And I hope--maybe this is too much to hope for, but I hope they will reconsider and join us in passing this commonsense bill that so many of the people they represent--not just whom I represent but they represent--want to become law.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. President, for those who are not familiar with what actually happens here in Washington, DC, as I stated earlier, for the fifth time, Democrats have blocked to end debate on whether 260,000 families should get paid for the work that they have done. It is almost ludicrous to even make that statement because the idea that we would withhold the pay of 260,000 hard-working DHS employees is insane.
But we haven't actually even had debate. What you see here in this Chamber that is virtually empty is that one person will make a speech, another person will make a speech, and quite frankly there is no interaction. So I actually want to change that a little bit.
So to any of my Democratic colleagues that want to speak, I will yield my time if they can answer for me and acknowledge that there are currently 260,000 DHS families going without pay. Is that true or false?
OK. No answer on that one. I will break the suspense. That is true.
The second thing I will yield for a comment on is: Will any of my Democratic colleagues that are present in this Chamber acknowledge that the Democrats have not agreed--have not agreed--to individually fund Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, and the nuclear threat Agency within the Department of Homeland Security--have absolutely not presented any resolutions or votes to fund those Agencies? Is that true or false?
Seeing no response, I will break the silence and say that is true.
Would any Democrat in the Chamber acknowledge that fewer than 10 percent of the entire workforce of DHS works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE?
Well, they can fact-check me, but the answer is that is true.
Of the 22,000 ICE employees, will any Democrat in this Chamber acknowledge that the vast majority of those employees work for Homeland Investigations?
What do they do? That is the group that identifies, chases, and catches really bad guys. These are the people who actually go out and find the worst of the worst, transnational groups. The vast majority of ICE employees work for that division. Is that true or false? Would you acknowledge that that is accurate?
OK. Hearing no comments from my Democratic colleagues, the answer to that is it is true.
So the remaining 5,000 employees out of 260,000 that my colleagues do not want to give a paycheck despite the fact that they came to work for the last 35 days--unlike anybody in this Chamber who has not come to work the last 35 days because that has definitely not happened--will they acknowledge that collective punishment is a bad idea? In other words, would they acknowledge that punishing 5,000 people who work for Enforcement and Removal Operations because a couple dozen--maybe, generously, a couple dozen; probably less; probably a handful maybe didn't do everything perfectly--you are recommending that we collectively punish all 5,000 people? Is that what you are saying?
No response. The answer is only a politician would think that that is a good idea. Only a politician would think that collective punishment is the way to go. You are punishing 260,000 employees in the Department of Homeland Security because you think that if you had been in that situation, you would have acted differently. Four or five, six, seven people that you think did the wrong thing gives you the moral authority to take away the paychecks of 260,000 people.
And I am going to look forward to hearing from my colleague from Utah, who has done so much work to put together the SAVE America Act. And he actually hasn't had anybody say this to him: Thank you. Thank you for the hard work. You have put in I can't even imagine how many hours--you and your staff. You have been willing to listen to anybody who wants to improve your bill, and yet you have gotten very little feedback, except for on the floor when they accused you of God knows what.
But I will ask my Republican colleague--because I watched it on TV, and so I am going to ask my Republican colleague to answer whether this is true or false; and any of my Democratic colleagues I will yield to if they want to jump in. I suspect they won't.
Is it true that, yesterday, my fellow Republican Senator, Senator Husted, who is doing an amazing job--a good man that I have known for 20 years. Is it true that he proposed a bill that would have simply required photo ID to vote? Not a photo ID that proves you are a citizen, which I think we should have that, but just a simple photo ID the way any of us have to walk in and out of this building? Is that true?
Mr. President, I ask consent to answer the question through the Chair.
I yield to my colleague from Utah.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. President, in response to the question from the Senator from Ohio, the junior Senator from Ohio--not to be confused with the very handsome senior Senator from Ohio--came to the floor yesterday. Now, the junior Senator from Ohio comes to this job with a unique background, a unique set of knowledge born of experience as the longtime chief elections officer of the State of Ohio.
As he looks at the SAVE America Act, he sees that there are two main components. Component 1 deals with voter ID, where you just show up with a photo ID on the day of election to prove that you are who you say you are, the same person listed on your voter registration file. Component 2 deals with establishing citizenship at the time of voter registration.
About 48 hours ago, a lot of our Democratic colleagues started stating publicly and privately, here on the Senate floor and outside of this Chamber, that they would be just fine if this were just a voter ID bill. And so the junior Senator from Ohio had this great idea. He said: Look, why don't we create a separate bill file. We will take the exact same text from component 1--that is the part that deals just with photo ID, photo ID to be shown by the voter on the day of voting, at the voting place, to show that the voter is, in fact, the same person listed on the voter registration file. After all, the Democrats have said they are just fine with the voter ID component.
So he gave a speech in support of it. I backed him up in a parallel speech. Then he offered it up, offered to pass it by what we call live UC, which is a mechanism by which you ask unanimous consent of all Senators to pass something. It seemed like a very good idea given the amount of bipartisan consensus surrounding the voter ID provision.
We were watching with bated breath, very much anticipating the answer. And, curiously, it drew an objection from the Democrats, articulated by the Senator from Oregon. But here was the interesting thing that I would say to my friend and colleague, the distinguished senior Senator from Ohio. At the time the Democrat objection was raised, the basis of the objection, as I heard it, was related entirely to component 2 that has only to do with proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration.
So I don't know. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe this was an accident. Maybe he didn't mean to object.
I hope that we will continue to do those things. Perhaps tomorrow or in the days to come, we will try that again--because it drew an objection, but the objection didn't have any explanation as to why it would be unreasonable for someone to show up on the day of voting just to make sure that somebody else isn't impersonating you, that you are the same person you claim to be and the same person on your voter registration file.
I hope that that answers satisfactorily the question asked by the senior Senator from Ohio.
It does. Unless any of my Democratic colleagues want to debate any of the items I mentioned--hearing no debate, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, it is unfortunate that we are here today to debate the merits of this so-called SAVE America Act.
Right now, Americans are struggling with the rising costs of housing, healthcare, gas, groceries, and more. Earlier this week in Maryland, the average price of gas shot up 14 cents overnight. The American people are suffering from the effects of a trade war started by this administration and now are watching as we are stuck in an illegal and poorly planned military war in Iran.
This increasing unaffordability is an urgent crisis that actually demands a resolution, but unfortunately we have an administration that is completely out of touch. There are so many real issues that we could be working on that would actually benefit the lives of working families across our country, but we are here ignoring their wishes and debating this legislation because this President isn't living in reality. He has created a fantasy crisis and is committed to finding a solution to a problem that does not exist.
So my colleagues are here making arguments that don't hold up under any real scrutiny, claiming that this bill is necessary to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in American elections. But reality says that noncitizen voting in Federal elections is already against the law, and there are enforcement mechanisms in place. This is the law, and it should be followed.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle disingenuously claim that this bill is a commonsense election integrity measure focused on proof of citizenship, voter ID, and cleaner voting rolls. Reality says that, on top of everything else that people are dealing with right now, requiring even more paperwork would create real problems for so many people--like married women whose documents don't match because they changed their names to match their husbands or members of our military who move locations often in service of our country. It would be a problem for people who rely on mail registration or absentee voting. It would be an undue burden for our seniors, veterans, students, and rural voters. Voting already requires a form of American identification.
And so my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that this bill would provide necessary aggressive voter roll verification and removal of noncitizens from the rolls. Reality says that this aggressive Federal overreach would include requiring States to submit voter data to DHS, the same organization that is currently sending ICE goon squads of men with masks on to kill Americans in our streets. States would be required to submit their complete statewide voter registration lists to DHS for comparison through the SAVE program on an ongoing basis. That is completely impractical.
The SAVE program was not designed to be a voter registration system, and it predictably has resulted in false matches and false ineligibility flags. What is more, it gives DHS a continuing role in Federal elections that it is not equipped or designed to handle. It hands over critical information to an administration that I would dare say has already proven that it is not trustworthy and that it cannot or will not keep the sensitive data of the American people protected. It hands over information to an administration that has already failed this very basic test of using its power for retribution.
Reality says this is being treated as an emergency right now, and we understand why: Because it is a part of a broader electoral strategy that this administration needs to be in place ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. People are unhappy with the direction that our country is going in right now. They are upset that their government isn't working on the real issues that they are facing. And instead of addressing the affordability crisis that is staring us in the face--the affordability crisis that was caused by this President--this administration wants to guarantee a successful midterm election by ``fixing'' an electoral system that is not broken.
The President already issued an Executive order directing Federal Agencies to be more involved in election-related enforcement and citizen verification.
And since then, the DOJ has sought extensive voter data from nearly every State. At least 48 States and DC have received requests for their complete voter registration lists, and the DOJ has sued DC and 29 States, including Maryland, for refusing to provide statewide voter lists with driver's license and Social Security information.
This administration is counting on Republicans in Congress to sell their sick fantasy, and that is why we are here now, wasting precious time trying to fix a problem that is not real. But
So what are the architects of this bill actually seeking? Well, simply put, they are seeking to suppress the vote. This is not a standard voter ID bill. This bill is not about protecting democracy. Protecting democracy would eliminate barriers that keep more Americans from voting. This bill does not do that; it does the opposite.
This bill is a blatant attempt to kick eligible American voters off the rolls and make it more complicated for Americans to register and vote. States have already done an excellent job fashioning a system that works.
The fantasy world this bill envisions would disrupt the way voter registration and voting actually work in practice. It would undermine or severely limit online registration, registration by mail, motor- voter systems, same-day registration, and voter registration drives by requiring in-person presentation of documentary proof.
It would alter registration, list maintenance, and ballot-casting all at once, forcing States and election officials to rework systems that voters already rely on.
My home State of Maryland has worked hard to build a system that is both secure and accessible. This bill would undermine the progress that we and so many other States have made by replacing those successful, efficient State systems with new Federal mandates and new legal risks for elections officials.
It would result in wrongful removals from voter rolls and more undue burdens, putting new barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box.
Now, if the President and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to ignore the urgent crisis facing the Nation in order to fix issues with voting that actually do exist, they would endorse the bill that I have introduced, the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, that would criminalize knowingly spreading false information about the time, place, or manner of voting or about voter qualifications, and would prohibit threatening or coercing individuals not to vote or to vote in a certain way.
But that would require my colleagues to actually care about our democracy. They would sign on to the numerous bills by my colleagues that I cosponsored, like Senator Klobuchar's Register America to Vote Act. It would automatically register all eligible citizens to vote when they turn 18. But this, too, would require my colleagues to actually care about our democracy.
They would sign on to Senator Wyden's Vote at Home Act that would expand vote-by-mail, a method that has proven to increase voter participation. Yet that would require my colleagues to care about our democracy.
They would sign on to Senator Padilla's Voter Purge Protection Act that would prohibit States from using questionable voter purge tactics to take tens of thousands of eligible voters off the voting rolls. But that, too, would require my colleagues to care about democracy.
If they truly cared about democracy, they would have already signed on to the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would restore the safeguards of the Voting Rights Act that was so shortsightedly gutted by the Supreme Court.
John Lewis lived through some of this Nation's most challenging times. His reality was seeing poll taxes and literacy tests disenfranchise thousands, harassment and death threats for trying to register voters, violent attacks for peacefully protesting. His reality was bravely standing up to hate, knowing that fighting for the right to vote was worth the blood he shed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
That very real crisis was met by the passing of the landmark Voting Rights Act, so instrumental to this Nation's progress that through everything he faced in his life, John Lewis said that his ``greatest fear is that one day we may wake up and our democracy is gone.''
You know, I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge last summer. It is something that I recommend that all who have the ability to do will do, so that especially the young people of our country will understand truly what has been put on the line in order for us to have the right to vote.
It wasn't lost on me, as I walked across that bridge and recognized-- to be honest with you, very similar to these goons running across our country, these ICE agents in masks. These are people who were essentially deputized to traumatize American citizens.
So the men who were on the other side of that Edmund Pettus Bridge were waiting for these young people--John Lewis was 22 years old when he took up this battle--walked across that bridge, and these people who were not even truly law enforcement officials had sticks that were wrapped in barbed wire.
Can you imagine the character of a man or a person who is capable of beating another human with a stick that was wrapped in barbed wire? But that is how strongly these people felt about depriving people of the right to vote. They beat him within an inch of his life because they did not want to give African Americans the right to vote.
So this bill would take real steps toward creating another crisis, a crisis that was John Lewis' ``greatest fear.'' America has a long, detailed history of people fighting, bleeding, and dying to secure the right to vote.
That hard-won freedom to speak with your vote should not depend on whether you have the time, money, or flexibility to satisfy a new set of hurdles that go to serve this administration's goals.
And I would say that those goals are intellectually dishonest goals, and they are not reality.
You don't save America by silencing the voices of Americans. I will repeat that. There is no way to save America by silencing the voices of Americans. You save America by embracing the ideals that set us apart to begin with. The reality is that we should be encouraging more people to take full advantage of their rights. That is why we should be making it easier for eligible citizens to participate in our democracy, not harder.
When a bill takes a fundamental right and wraps it in paperwork, penalties, and confusion, that is not election security; that is a step backward for American democracy, and that is not what the American people want.
They did not ask for an additional crisis to deal with. This administration has insisted on ignoring their calls for help on the affordability crisis, but maybe listening to their objections to this bill will open their eyes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. President, I appreciate the insights and enthusiasm offered by my friend and distinguished colleague the Senator from Maryland. I appreciate the right of every Senator to express his or her opinions, his or her thoughtful analysis in the legislative Chamber that we occupy.
This is part of what it means to be Americans, and it is a big part of what it means to be a U.S. Senator, to have the privilege to stand here and debate matters that are important to the American people, important to the ongoing health and vitality not only of our elections but also of our system of government, our Constitution, and the ideals embodied in our other great founding document, the Declaration of Independence, whose birthday we are about to celebrate in a few months.
Documents don't enjoy the 250th anniversary of their writing very often, but we are about to celebrate that. And on the same day, we will celebrate both the birthday of that document and with it the birthday of our country because that document ushered in the existence of the United States of America as a separate and independent sovereign country.
One of the many features of that country from the very day it was created nearly 250 years ago is the concept of popular sovereignty. Now, it is probably too many syllables for most folks to want to use it in one sentence, but of course we all understand that popular sovereignty--well, it sounds like a fancy term--refers to a very simple thing.
In this country, the government, the country itself, consists of the people. Those who have the right--the divine right--to govern are the people themselves, the citizens themselves. That, from day one, has been the concept.
That was different than things were in our mother country. In our mother country, we didn't have--we had elements of popular sovereignty that had
For that to mean something, we do have to protect the right to vote. And for the right to vote to mean anything, you also have to have fair and free elections. Now, when we have elections, we have a common understanding that I don't think anyone here disagrees with or at least wouldn't articulate their disagreement in public.
There is a very widespread agreement that those who vote need to meet the legal requirements to vote. And one of the most fundamental laws that we have is that in order to vote in U.S. elections, you have to be a U.S. citizen.
To my knowledge, this has never been controversial in the United States of America. And in fact, it is not controversial to this day, even in this Chamber. I think every one of us here, if asked, would agree: Yes, only U.S. citizens should vote in U.S. elections. It is against the law to do otherwise, and in fact, if someone casts a vote in a U.S. election who is not a U.S. citizen, he or she has committed a pretty grave felony offense against the United States.
So the question then becomes: If that is such a key element to who we are as a people, to the functioning of our government, to the concept of popular sovereignty that has been embodied in our system of government--first in the Declaration of Independence, later in the Constitution, and in our laws ever since then--then what do we have to do to protect that if it plays such an important role as it does?
Well, there is this old expression that if everyone is family, no one is. There is a corollary to that: If everything is urgent, nothing is. When you apply a label too broadly, the label itself loses meaning.
When you grant too many people the privileges, the incidents of citizenship--when those granted it include people who are noncitizens, then that is making everyone family, even if they are actually not. That, in turn, erodes what it means to be an American. It dilutes each lawful vote cast by an actual U.S. citizen.
Now, we just heard a laundry list of complaints, very, very similar to the laundry list of complaints that we have heard over the last 36, 48 hours--I guess, we are going on 72 hours since we turned to this bill just a few days ago.
Almost every argument we have heard against this from across the aisle has included some of these same elements, and we heard some more of those today from my friend and distinguished colleague the Senator from Maryland.
Among those arguments that she made today just a few moments ago had to do with--there were some arguments that had to do with the fact that this bill, as she described it, would somehow take away the rights of some American citizens to vote and that it would result in disenfranchising American citizens.
I wish to state at the outset, emphatically, that this is not true. This was neither the intention of the SAVE America Act nor would it be the effect of the SAVE America Act. This legislation, once it becomes law, will not disenfranchise a single American citizen, not a single one.
The only people who will be prevented from voting are those who are not citizens, those who are not allowed to vote in our system of government, and those who, by voting, if they were to vote, would be committing a very serious Federal felony criminal offense and with good reason.
So we have to be clear about what this does. This does not achieve, as she put it, erect barriers--barriers that would stop U.S. citizens from voting.
Remember what this does. We have the twin objectives that are upstream from everything that we are doing. We want to make it easy to vote, and we want to make it hard to cheat. To do that, we have two principal elements in the SAVE America Act. The first element would require voters to bring a government-issued photo ID with them to the polling place on the day of voting to show who they are, to demonstrate that they are who they claim to be and that they are the same person referenced in their voter registration file.
That is important for a number of reasons, including the fact that you don't want somebody voting in somebody else's name, and you certainly don't want somebody voting who is not supposed to be voting at all.
There are some people in the United States who might be citizens who are prohibited from voting for reasons having to do with criminal convictions, for example, or those who have renounced their U.S. citizenship. You wouldn't want that to happen. You wouldn't want a noncitizen voting, and you wouldn't want one person who might be a citizen with voting rights voting in somebody else's name--perhaps in an effort to cast multiple votes in the same election by impersonating another or otherwise. So that is a very simple principle.
That feature of the bill--having to bring a government-issued photo ID to the polling location on the day of voting to show that they are who they claim to be--is not controversial. It is certainly not controversial among the American people--not among Democrats, not among Republicans, not among members of any ethnic group, racial minority, gender, any part of the country. This is noncontroversial throughout the United States.
It is apparently even noncontroversial in this Chamber, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. Over the last few days, we have heard Democrat after Democrat--perhaps not all of them but many of them-- including the minority leader himself, indicate that they are just fine with voter ID requirements. Yet last night, when the junior Senator from Ohio attempted to pass by unanimous consent a provision limited to the voter ID requirements of the SAVE America Act, it drew an objection from the Democrats. Now, when that objection was raised, the argument that I heard, that I recall, didn't have anything to do with objections to voter ID; they had to do with other things elsewhere in the SAVE America Act.
The second component of the SAVE America Act, of course, is a requirement that at the time a voter newly registers to vote, he or she must establish that he or she is a citizen of the United States.
An important point to remember here is that no one will be required to reregister. If you are already registered to vote in the United States, you don't have to go back and do it again unless and until you have some event that requires you to register again. Let's suppose, for example, that you move from California to Utah. Well, then, yeah, you would need to reregister in your new place of residence. But nobody who is currently registered to vote would have to reregister unless or until they move or until something else might require registration, and nothing in this bill would require that. So let's keep that in mind.
There are a number of arguments that keep being raised, primarily about the proof of citizenship requirements within the SAVE America Act. I would note here that in the citizenship component of the SAVE America Act, there are two basic components within that. One component deals with the obligation of the registering voter at the time of voter registration, and the other imposes obligations on State governments to coordinate and share information and data with the Federal Government as they undertake regular reviews of State voter registration files just to make sure that people who are registered to vote are, in fact, U.S. citizens.
Why is that necessary? Well, currently there are a whole lot of States--and they tend to be States that might colloquially be described as blue, meaning that they are run by Democratic Governors and/or have Democratic-dominated State legislatures--that are refusing to cooperate, to coordinate, to share data with the Department of Homeland Security and the entities within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for maintaining the SAVE database--an already existing database designed to help identify issues like this--like noncitizens who may have crept into voter registration files--and get rid of them.
But with all those blue States refusing to cooperate, to coordinate, to enter into a memorandum of understanding pertaining to the sharing of information, of data, it is a really vexing problem because it raises all kinds of concerns. How are we supposed to know when the law is violated, when a
Now, a few minutes ago, my friend and colleague the distinguished Senator from New Mexico made an argument on this point. He made a parallel reference by analogy to what might happen if somebody were saying ``We don't need additional laws confirming that it is against the law to run a stop sign if it is already against the law'' and saying that this is akin to passing another law making doubly sure that people don't run stop signs.
I understand the point, but it would be a fair argument or at least a fairer argument if the argument runs something like this: If in his hypothetical there were a system in place that legally and practically prevented police from monitoring tracked activities at intersections guarded by a stop sign, then, yes, that might be a fair, parallel reference, because that is exactly what we are dealing with, status quo, under a 1993 law called the NVRA--a law that, 20 years after its enactment, was interpreted by the Supreme Court--wrongly but conclusively, and that ruling remains in effect to this very day-- concluding that the State governments are prohibited--even where they suspect a registering voter is a noncitizen, they may not do anything to follow up on that person's citizenship. They may not request any proof of that person's citizenship even if they believe that it is suspect or lacking.
So that makes it analogous to this hypothetical of a supplemental law that would require or at least allow observation of the intersection guarded by a stop sign. If he is going to make that analogy, then that is how you make it fair, because that is essentially what is happening. That is directly analogous to what is happening here. It is as though we have laws saying that you may not run a stop sign, but State and local police are prohibited from observing traffic at any intersection guarded by a stop sign and may not issue traffic tickets even if they believe those things might be occurring because they are not allowed to watch that intersection. That is what is going on here.
But it is even worse than that because their own State governments are contributing to the violation of the laws, to ignoring it, because they refuse to share information; they refuse to hand over their data.
This is especially troubling for so many reasons, including and especially the fact that in a handful of States--I believe it is four or five jurisdictions, maybe four States and the District of Columbia-- they allow noncitizen voting in some of their local elections.
Now, I don't know why any jurisdiction would want to allow this. I don't know why any State would want to allow any local election within that State to include noncitizen voting. But if their State laws and their State constitution contain nothing to prohibit that, then that is their choice because there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution or in Federal law that would prohibit them from doing that.
Nonetheless, once they do that, it raises all kinds of questions that really do need to be addressed. For example, if they are voting, if you have noncitizens legally voting in some elections in four or five States and the District of Columbia, then that means they are registering to vote. They have voter registration files. Those States are asked: What are you doing with those voter registration files to make sure they are not cross-pollinating, that the same registered voters who are noncitizens are not also participating in Federal elections? And they are not sharing their information. They are not answering that question, which is a really, really important question. Their refusal to answer that question or to share data makes the need for this even more pressing.
Now, when we look at all of this, one of the many arguments that the Democrats appear to be raising over and over again--there are two of them that are especially common that I think need to be addressed head- on here.
One of the arguments raised over and over again is that if we require registering voters to provide at the time of voter registration proof of citizenship, then that is necessarily going to disenfranchise a lot of people.
Now, one number they throw around is something like 21 million Americans will be disenfranchised, will be unable to vote. Well, that by itself is not true. It is not supported. This is based on some studies indicating--based on surveys, they extrapolate that there are about 21 million Americans who don't necessarily have that requisite documentation or they don't know where it is at the moment or something to that effect.
Remember, by the way, any and every time any American citizen takes a new job, starts a new job as an employee for an employer on American soil or anywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States, they have to fill out an I-9 form. The I-9 form requires them to provide, before they may start that job, proof of U.S. citizenship either supplied by a U.S. passport establishing U.S. citizenship or, alternatively, an original, certified birth certificate accompanied by a government-issued photo ID and/or an original Social Security card. If you don't have those things, you can't start the job unless and until you can provide that documentation.
Now, those things would suffice under the SAVE America Act voter registration provisions requiring proof of citizenship, but that is not all that would suffice. We wanted to make it as flexible as it could possibly be, lest there be any credible argument that this would impose an undue hardship, an undue burden.
One could argue, of course, that even just requiring the same documentation every American has to provide whenever they start a new job would be fair, and maybe it would be, but we wanted to make it even easier to comply with that. We want to encourage those who are U.S. citizens to be able to vote. If you can legally vote, you should, and you shouldn't have these impediments. So we added a list of other documents that you could use. Certain other ID cards that have been established and recognized within the U.S. Government as establishing citizenship could do it.
Then we provided a catchall--a catchall that not one of my Democrat colleagues has even acknowledged even though they have been in the room when I have raised the argument, when I have cited it, when I noted what it does.
Some of the people hearing the argument over and over again still refuse even to acknowledge that it exists when they claim that unless you have a U.S. passport, you are going to be disenfranchised. Some of them will say that a passport will cost a couple of hundred dollars, so it is a poll tax; it is expensive; it is going to disenfranchise all these people. They ignore this provision.
The provision begins at the text on line 22 of page 12 of the SAVE America Act as passed by the House of Representatives, which is the legislation pending before us and that we are now debating. They ignore this every single time. They ignore it over and over and over again, to the point of being not only disingenuous but dishonest. These are, in fact, dishonest arguments because they overlook that.
This doesn't disenfranchise anyone. You need not shell out a nickel, a dime, a quarter, not even a penny or a fraction of a penny. You need not spend anything. You need not waste any time digging through, oh, piles of documents. If you can't find them and if you never had those documents to begin with--your house burned down or your dog ate them, whatever--not a problem. Why? Well, because we allowed them by a simple affidavit to provide an attestation. It is a personal narrative of, here is why I am a citizen--either based on the fact that I was born in such and such a city in the United States on such a date, or I was not born a U.S. citizen but I was later naturalized. Here is where I was born. Here is when I was naturalized. Here is the path I took to naturalization.
Either way, once you submit that--and that could be a brief paragraph or maybe a few sentences to describe those critical facts--you hand it over to the State election official, and the burden then shifts to the State to confirm or refute. Unless they can refute the facts that you allege, you are a registered voter, and there is no need for you to worry about it.
So this is absolute nonsense to say that you will be disenfranchised if you don't have your documents or if you can't afford a passport or whatever it is. This is just an absolute, total lie.
Look, in these more serene moments within the U.S. Senate, when things seem calm--and they are, in some respects, calm--it is not a time for us to assume that the arguments aren't real, that they aren't being made aggressively. This is not a time for drinking a pina colada. This is not a time for ignoring the endogenous and exogenous pressures that we face from every direction.
Speaking of endogenous pressures, I see the presence of my friend and distinguished colleague the great Senator from the State of Kansas, and he has got a message for us. I am going to interrupt my remarks and yield, with the permission of the Chair, to Senator Marshall, until the conclusion of his remarks, when I will continue mine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Utah for his great leadership on this.
Last night, we had a moment of clarity in this Chamber. Senate Democrats were given the simplest possible test--a clean, standalone vote on voter ID, with nothing attached, with nothing complicated, and just one question: Do you believe only American citizens with a valid ID should decide American elections?
With nowhere to hide, they voted it down. In doing so, they told every American exactly where they stand.
Now, I understand their concerns about the provisions in the SAVE Act as to the proof of citizenship and stronger guardrails around absentee ballots, and those deserve honest debate; but there is simply no excuse for rejecting basic voter identification when 70 percent of Democrats-- their own voters, the people who sent them here--support it. There are 70 percent of Democrats who support voter ID. This vote was very clarifying; it was unmasking.
I want everyone who is at home tonight enjoying March Madness to think about your situation personally for a moment. You know what it is like to vote. You leave work. You go and vote. You stand in line. You fill out your ballot. You drive home. You are late for dinner. You did everything right. But on the way home, you think to yourself: Oh, my gosh. Somewhere out there, someone with no legal right to vote canceled my vote. My vote is gone--neutralized like it never happened.
Now, that should make every American angry regardless of your party. I think it is important to stop and think why--why people are concerned about this--and what we are actually dealing with here.
There are 50 million noncitizens living in this country. There are 50 million noncitizens living in this country--some are legal; some are illegal--out of 330 million. We have four States that are automatically registering people to vote when they interact with government services.
Let me say that again. Four States are automatically registering people to vote--regardless of their citizenship--when they interact with government services.
We have no reliable national system to verify citizenship at the ballot box. That is not fearmongering. That is just the truth. Maybe that is why 80 percent of Americans support voter ID. We can't get 80 percent of Americans to agree on whether a hamburger is better than chicken or if peanut butter is better than jelly, but 80 percent of Americans support voter ID. It is just common sense. Like I said earlier, 70 percent of Democrats agree with them as well.
Now, as I sat and listened to the arguments on the floor last night, we saw Democrats dodging and weaving like Muhammad Ali at the Thrilla in Manila, never once addressing voter ID itself. It was amazing to sit here and watch them squirm and refuse to answer the question at hand: Do they support voter ID or not?
So I had to pause, and we have plenty of time to think this weekend and ask a fundamental question. One of those questions we didn't get to talk about much in med school, but the question I ask myself is: What actually sustains a Republic? What are we really fighting for?
Well, I think, No. 1, at the top of this is safe and secure elections.
These are not a Republican issue, and they are not a conservative talking point. They are the beating heart of democracy itself.
So, last night, I sat down and penciled out what I believe are at least seven of the sacred pillars that uphold our entire system of self-government. If I could, I would like to walk through them because, when any one of these pillars is weakened, the whole temple of liberty trembles.
First and foremost are free and fair elections. The sacred cornerstone of our Republic are safe, secure, honest elections defended by integrity, universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and the peaceful transfer of power. This is the voice of the people itself. Without it, democracy does not stumble; it dies.
Next is the rule of law, the unyielding bedrock of equality under justice. No person, no party, no elite stands above the law. Lose a single pillar and every other freedom collapses.
Next is the separation of powers with checks and balances. We see that every day up here, the masterful architecture of liberty itself, forged by genius, to chain ambition and prevent any single branch from devouring our freedoms.
Next is an independent and impartial judiciary, the fearless bulwark of due process and constitutional fidelity, the final guardian of justice protecting the weak, the innocent, and the Constitution against the storms of fleeting majorities.
Next is the protection of fundamental rights and civil liberties, including free speech, a free press, assembly, association, and religion. These are sacred, God-given, and must burn undimmed forever.
Next is the sanctity of private property, the moral and economic foundation of human dignity.
Finally, political pluralism, transparency, accountability, and active citizenship participation.
Election integrity is not just one of these pillars. It is the foundation beneath all of them. Every debate in this Chamber, every vote, every piece of legislation, all of it rests on the assumption that the people in these seats were put here legitimately by the voters of their States.
I cannot get past the simple fact in this country that we have collectively decided you need a photo ID to board a plane. Remember, trust but verify. I walk up to the plane, and they all know I am Senator Roger Marshall, but they make me verify who I am.
When you check into a hotel, when you buy certain medications, when you open a bank account, when you pick up a prescription, when you apply for government benefits, you have to show an ID. But with your vote--the single most important thing you do as a citizen--we are told that asking for an ID is somehow voter oppression, which certainly has not been proven to be true in the multiple States that already have voter ID.
Again, it doesn't make sense, and the American people know it doesn't make sense. That is why 80 percent of them support voter ID.
I am willing to come to the table. There are parts of this bill that we can work out. I am not asking anyone to take it or leave it, but, first, answer the premise of this entire debate. We don't get anywhere if you don't recognize the importance of voter ID.
So here is the question: Do you believe only American citizens should decide American elections?
I am going to say it again: Do you believe only American citizens should decide American elections? Because until we get a straight answer to that, nothing else matters.
What gives us the best chance right now is getting 10 Democrats to come across the aisle and do the right thing. Again, if 70 percent of their own voters support voter ID, you would think 10 Senate Democrats would do the same thing; that somewhere in that caucus are 10 Senators who are willing to listen to the people who sent them here. If we could get just 10 of them to stand with us--to stand with their own constituents--on this one thing, then let's keep talking. Let's work out the rest together.
So I am going to say it a third time and a fourth time. I have no regrets in saying it again.
Last night, Senate Democrats voted against voter ID. Now, I have only heard two Democrats ever publicly--on this floor or anywhere--say they support voter ID, only 2 of the 47 Senate Democrats. The national media needs to ask the rest of them directly on camera: Why don't you support voter ID? And when they dodge and deflect, that answer should be put out for the rest of America to see. The American people deserve to know their vote counts. They deserve to know that the person casting the ballot next to them has every right to be there. They deserve a system they can trust.
We are going to keep fighting because the American people deserve better than the answer we got last night.
I yield to the Senator from Utah.
Mr. President, thank you to my friend and colleague the Senator from Kansas for his observations. It is often helpful to have the diagnosis of an actual medical doctor when prescribing a problem.
We have an illness within our election system. Our elections have been rendered infirm or at least very insecure by some of these features that I noted just a few minutes ago, including the fact that the 1993 NVRA, as passed by Congress, has been interpreted the wrong way--but conclusively--by the Supreme Court as prohibiting the States from taking any voter registration file that comes through the NVRA, meaning an application for a driver's license made at a DMV in which the applicant checks a box and signs their name, saying: Yes, I would like to also register to vote with my driver's license application, and I certify with my signature that I am, in fact, a U.S. citizen.
Once that is done, there can be no further inquiry according to the Supreme Court's incorrect but conclusive ruling in this 2013 case called Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona.
And that, in short, is why we are where we are today. It is most of the reason why we need the SAVE America Act. It is because they said that the State cannot require--even where citizenship is believed to be lacking on the part of one or more applicants, as long as they have used the NVRA form at a DMV, the State can't do anything to follow up on it.
As I was noting a minute ago, some of these States do nothing themselves to follow up on the question of citizenship, and many of them--most of the blue States--have refused to share data with the folks at the Department of Homeland Security who run the SAVE database, which is designed to help weed out those who have been incorrectly, fraudulently, mistakenly, or otherwise placed in a voter registration file.
Again, if a State wants to allow noncitizens to vote in State elections, they may do so, and some States have allowed that in the context of some of their local elections as has the District of Columbia. I still know of no reason why they would want to do that, but they may do so if their own laws allow it because the Federal Constitution and Federal law doesn't prohibit them from doing so.
Will my colleague from Utah yield for a question?
I will yield for a question.
There are just a few of us here in this Chamber, but I see my colleague from Connecticut. So I am going to ask the Senator a question, my colleague from Utah.
Would it surprise you to know that, just a couple of years ago, a Democrat State representative in Connecticut proposed a bill to allow all undocumented noncitizens the right to vote? It is estimated that there are 240,000 illegal aliens in the State of Connecticut; yet a Democrat-elected official proposed that bill. Would that surprise you?
It surprises me in the sense that it seems phenomenally unwise. It would have surprised me earlier in my lifetime. It would have surprised me even earlier in my time here in the U.S. Senate; yet something has happened in recent years that has eroded this longstanding, long-accepted assumption that only citizens vote in our elections.
I am not aware of any other country--certainly not any other country that any of us would want to live in, but probably not any other country that we wouldn't want to live in either--that would want to have or that would allow to have noncitizens vote in their elections because an election isn't much of an election if anyone can vote and you don't keep track of who is voting and you don't keep track of whether there are duplicative votes, especially as to what we are focused on here--persons voting who have no right to vote who, by voting, would not only be committing a serious felony offense but, by voting, would also be diluting the votes cast by lawful voters, by actual citizens of that country.
There has been a trend more in one party than the other, and you can guess which one. There has been a trend where people say, let's just let everyone vote, and toward thinking of a lot of things like this, like noncitizens voting in elections as being something of a victimless crime or perhaps, at a minimum, as sort of the required cost of doing business.
Remember how I said a moment ago how our mantra has been and should continue to be: Let's make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
The Democratic Party has, in recent years, leaned so heavily on ``let's make it easy to vote'' that they often forget or, in some cases defiantly refuse, to finish the sentence. I am talking about hard to cheat.
Now, I understand the point. I understand that, perhaps, they are so enthusiastic to just make sure that everyone votes that maybe they don't care that some noncitizens might vote. I think this is very unwise, and it becomes especially untenable--especially indefensible-- when we now have an estimated 30 million-plus noncitizens residing in the United States, 10 to 15 million of whom entered this country illegally between 2021 and 2025 alone.
So, yes, that is shocking in some ways that a Democratic lawmaker in a State not too far from where we now stand actually introduced legislation trying to open up the franchise like that because when you do that, that is not a victimless moment. If you were to create that, you would be diluting the votes of lawful citizens. But, again, a State may do that if that State's laws and that State's Constitution allow it. It would be unwise.
Nonetheless, by doing that, whenever a State does that, whether for statewide State elections or just for local elections within that State, it creates a problem. It creates what I would think of as more or less a clear and present threat, one that, unless acted upon, will culminate in widespread violation of the law.
As I was describing a few minutes ago, for those handful of States that have expressly allowed noncitizen voting in some of their local elections, that means individuals have registered to vote who are not citizens. Once they have registered to vote, they are registered voters. What is to stop them from showing up and saying: ``I am a registered voter, and I would like to vote on election day,'' and they receive a ballot? And the way ballots in most States work, there is a ballot that has Federal elections and State elections and local elections all on the same ballot, the same document or sequence of documents.
So when the questions have been asked of those jurisdictions: What, if anything, are you doing to separate out those voter registration files from those voters who are noncitizens but, nonetheless, allowed to vote in local elections in your State, what are you doing to prevent them from voting in Federal elections?
Silence has been a response. A refusal to cooperate has been the response. That is chilling.
All right. Let's get back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago. They have been making a series of arguments against the citizenship obligation, the citizenship-related provisions of the SAVE America Act. And to repeat, we have made it really easy, far easier than the citizenship documentation requirements associated with new employment. If you are an American citizen and you have ever started a new job anywhere in the United States, you have had to fill out an I-9 form, and with that, you had to comply with a very rigid, specific set of document obligations. You had to establish either a U.S. passport, one that establishes your citizenship as an American citizen, or, alternatively, a U.S. birth certificate and government-issued photo ID or original Social Security card. If you can't do that, you are not going to
Again, we made it a lot easier, very deliberately, to comply with the SAVE America Act. We have a list of other documents that are widely known and recognized by the U.S. Government as establishing citizenship, including a certain subcategory of driver's licenses that, in some States, these enhanced driver's licenses will affirmatively establish citizenship based on the documentation that was required at the time the driver's license was received. We included those.
But we also included this provision that makes it really easy for someone who has no documentation at all, is missing some documentation or even all of it. They can do so by an affidavit, an attestation just providing the basic details about how they became a citizen: when and where they were born; whether they were citizens at the time of their birth; and if they weren't citizens at the time of their birth, when and where and how, by what mechanism, they became naturalized citizens.
From the moment you do that, you shift the burden onto the State, and it is then the State's job to go and confirm or refute what you have done.
Now, if you were lying, they will figure that out. You won't be registered, and you may end up getting in trouble for having lied under oath with that statement. I assume most people wouldn't do that; very few would knowing it is a sworn statement. But if they don't conclude that it is false and conclude that it is true--it would be pretty easy to confirm once you have provided the names, the dates, locations--then you will be registered to vote. No additional documents, in fact, not a single document has to be produced by you, just that basic set of statements.
Again, that begins on line 22, page 12, of the legislation we are now debating. And yet over and over and over again I hear from my Democratic colleagues that are arguing against this how this is going to disenfranchise anyone who doesn't have a passport--as many Americans don't--and a passport costs a couple hundred dollars. And they then often make the logical leap, well, this means you are imposing a poll tax, something that has been prohibited by the U.S. Constitution for over 60 years.
This simply is not true. There is not a poll tax. There is not a single expense. This doesn't disenfranchise anyone, even if you don't have any documents. And it is far more permissive than what you have to produce every single time you start a new job in the United States of America as a U.S. citizen.
Here is another argument that is frequently being raised against the SAVE America Act. This is a fairly broad argument. It is a surprising argument for reasons I am about to explain.
The Democrats are waving the flag of federalism, purporting to be the champions--the newly invigorated champions--of State sovereign authority, of the authority of the States within our Federal system. That is what I refer to when I mean ``federalism.'' I am referring to the 10th Amendment, the broad concept of federalism, the idea that Federal Government is as James Madison described in Federalist No. 45, a government with powers that Madison described as ``few and defined.'' And those powers reserved to the States he described as ``numerous and indefinite.''
My Democrat colleagues, each time they bring this up, they use the same term. It is an awkward term. It is an outdated term. It is a misnomer, in my opinion. I don't like it. It is ``States' rights.'' This is a term that conjures images of George Wallace in the Deep South, the Jim Crow South. The Jim Crow policies that the Democratic Party, at the time, insisted upon--racist, oppressive, hateful policies designed to disadvantage Black Americans and to exclude them from many aspects of society, public life, and private life--indefensible.
They would often invoke this doctrine of States' rights, which was then and remains now a misnomer because States do not have rights; States have authority. Authority is kind of the opposite of a right. A right, in this context, is something that is a privilege, a protection against authority being misused against you. So they are kind of the yin and the yang. They are polar opposites of each other. They are not the same thing.
All right. I got that out of my chest. Now let's move on to the substance of this.
We will call this federalism or State sovereign authority. They purport now to be champions of State sovereign authority. This is really interesting. They say that the SAVE America Act--this very straightforward bill that just requires proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration and photo ID at the time you cast a ballot to prove that you are who you claim to be, the same person identified in your voter registration file--they claim that this is somehow incompatible with constitutional principles of federalism; that it is somehow unconstitutional as a Federal takeover of State authority to conduct elections.
Now, this argument would be laughable if it weren't so frightening and, frankly, hypocritical.
Remember that, in the first place, article I, section 4, clause 1, of the Constitution couldn't be clearer on this point. I don't know how any of these people could even make this argument with a straight face for this reason alone, let alone for the other reasons I am about to identify. But article I, section 4, clause 1 of the Constitution makes a couple things clear. First, they acknowledge--wisely, I believe--that elections would be conducted by States. They didn't want to set up a Federal election authority. It would be cumbersome. It would be unnecessary. It would be unwise--too much consolidation of power, especially because this was always supposed to be a government of limited and enumerated powers.
So they said that not only for State elections, which, obviously, State authorities would manage, but also for the election of Federal officials, specifically election of U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives--Members of Congress. Their elections would also be run by State officials. They said that the legislatures of the respective States would have authority to establish the rules and regulations governing those elections, which they themselves would conduct.
But my Democrat colleagues conveniently leave out the following phrase in the same provision, in article I, section 4, clause 1, of the Constitution; that phrase being ``but the Congress may at any time . . . make or alter such Regulations,'' meaning those regulations, those rules and regulations governing specifically the State-run elections to choose U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators. It could not be clearer.
So that is all this is. We are using our authority--our very specific, very clear authority--to prescribe those rules and regulations.
It is not just in the abstract that this makes sense, not just in that technical, grammatical sense that we have that authority, and that is what we are exercising here. This is exactly the kind of thing that should be--and I believe must be, perhaps can only be--wielded by the Federal sovereign, not by State governments because what we are doing here is to establish citizenship.
Remember, we do have the power to say this, and we have, in fact, enacted laws saying that only U.S. citizens may vote. To give meaning to that, to render it enforceable, we have the power to ensure that that law is being complied with.
And the U.S. Government is also uniquely in a position to be able to ascertain who may be a citizen and who is not a citizen. No single State is going to be able to ascertain that question, nor is U.S. citizenship itself a creature of State law, as it is of Federal law. It is exactly the reason why we have various government Agencies that are involved in this, and they are managed, more or less, through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which, among other things, runs this database that already exists called the SAVE database that is created for, in addition to whatever else it may cover, this very sort of thing, so that States sharing information with the U.S. Government may cross-tabulate, cross-check, their voter registration files against U.S. citizenship data, uniquely in the hands of the U.S. Government, and easily ascertain who is a citizen and who is not.
That is an especially important thing to have, especially considering the fact that we had between 10 to 15 million people come into this country unlawfully just in a 4-year period alone--separate and apart from those who may
Given that almost every State participates in the NVRA, in almost every State, any of those noncitizens--whether they are here legally or illegally--in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in 2013 in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, any one of those people in any NVRA State--which is almost every State of the Union--can go into a DMV, apply for a driver's license, and by checking one box and then signing their name, they may register to vote.
So it is really important that we have that ability to do that. This information is uniquely in the hands of the U.S. Government, which is uniquely in a position to define and manage what it means to be a citizen and keep track of who is a citizen and who is not.
And yet these blue States continue, defiantly, to refuse to share information. They are actively subverting our ability not only to enforce Federal law but to even know when a violation has taken place or is taking place, and so that is stunning. That is what makes it all the more indefensible for them to oppose this and all the more laughable that they purport to be invoking the doctrine of federalism. They purport to be invoking the 10th Amendment, to be wrapping themselves in the Constitution by saying: This is an outrage; this is a Federal takeover of a State function. No, it is not. It is doubly and triply not a State function. It is a distinctly, decidedly, by designation of the U.S. Constitution, a Federal function.
Now, for the reasons why this is not just a laughable argument but it is also hypocritical, just a few years ago, many of the very same Democrats who now occupy this Chamber--in fact, nearly all of them were there at the time--and every single Democrat serving in the United States during the 117th Congress--that is the Congress empaneled on January 3, 2021, serving through January 3, 2023. Remember, that was a moment when the House and the Senate and the White House were all controlled by Democrats.
Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate at that time--which are most of the Democrats who are still here--but every one of them that were here then tried to pass and supported a bill designated in the 117th Congress as H.R. 1, the so-called For the People Act, perhaps the most aggressive, intrusive, and independently aggressively overreaching Federal power grab over elections in American history.
Now, that bill was not a modest reform. Unlike the SAVE America Act, it was not there as an exercise of our very clear and very narrow power under article I, section 4, clause 1; nor was it, as the SAVE America Act is, a natural outgrowth of an existing Federal law--the NVRA--nor was it necessitated by a quirk in the judicial interpretation of an existing Federal law--the NVRA--as this is.
Remember, that is the only reason we are even here. That is the only reason the SAVE America Act even became necessary, is because of the NVRA and existing Federal law itself imposes obligations on States based on the way it was later interpreted after its enactment.
So, in other words, I say to my Democratic colleagues: If you are offended by the SAVE America Act as a supposed Federal overreach, not only is that indefensible as a matter of Federal constitutional law-- either the plain text of the Constitution or any Supreme Court interpretation thereof--but it also presupposes that if you are opposed to this, that you also think the NVRA is itself an unconstitutional Federal takeover of State election authority.
Now, if you think that, then we are going to have a very different discussion. But to my knowledge, not one of them has suggested or argued that the NVRA is unconstitutional; and if it is not, there is not a chance in hell that you can make the argument that the SAVE America Act is unconstitutional--not a chance.
Back to the For the People Act, H.R. 1 in the 117th Congress, it was an 800-page monstrosity, a blueprint for nationalizing every meaningful aspect of how States run Federal elections--that is, elections for Federal office--most importantly, elections for U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. And Democrats defended it by citing the exact same constitutional authority that they now pretend doesn't exist. That is Congress' power under the elections clause to set uniform rules for Federal contests.
Now, let's recall a little bit about what H.R. 1 actually did--I should say what it would have done had it been enacted. Mercifully for all of us, it wasn't.
Let's talk about what it did. It didn't just suggest a few changes. It didn't just suggest some curative protections to existing Federal legislation. No, this is an entirely different beast--and beastly, it was. It imposed binding nationwide mandates with Federal court enforcement on matters of sweepingly, stunningly broad application. Among other things, it forced automatic voter registration at every government interaction, overriding State processes, overriding State law.
It mandated same-day voter registration everywhere. This is a big issue because States have a broad range of when they deem it appropriate to begin or end--especially end--voter registration prior to any election. Many States consider it reckless and an invitation--a recipe for voter fraud if they allow same-day voter registration. Other States don't. You know, that has long been considered their prerogative to decide, but this would just have decided it for the entire country.
It would have required no-excuse absentee voting and minimum periods of early voting no matter what State law said. If some States wanted and previously had always had much more limited pre-election-day voting periods or none at all, it wouldn't matter. It completely eviscerated their authority to make such decisions.
It would have stripped State legislatures of their traditional role-- not just their traditional role, but their constitutional role--a role acknowledged in the U.S. Constitution itself and in the respective State constitutions--in drawing legislative district maps, specifically those mentioned in the U.S. Constitution--the congressional maps; and it would have done that by forcing the so-called independent redirecting commissions, taking away the authority that has always belonged to the States and to the State legislatures--as the Constitution--as designed, as the Constitution contemplates and ordains--and forced them to adopt these independent redirecting commissions whether they wanted to or not.
It would have severely restricted how States could maintain accurate voter rolls, banning removals based solely on failure to vote, limiting interstate cross-checks, and imposing cumbersome requirements before any cleanup of voter registration files.
As if that weren't enough of an insult to federalism, to State sovereign authority, to good government, local self-rule, or any of the other things that we hold dear in our constitutional system, H.R. 1 went even further than that. It would have legalized unlimited ballot harvesting by third parties. It would have barred States from requiring witness signatures or notarization on mail-in ballots and forced them to count ballots received up to 10 days after election day.
Now, any of those things in isolation is a powder keg, is a huge, huge policy decision. Efforts to change anything like that in State law in any State legislature would end up being a very significant debate, but this just bulldozed all of it.
Particularly, when it comes to ballot harvesting--this is troubling. Ballot harvesting, when coupled with the existence of widespread, universal mail-in ballots, allows for a special kind of mischief, which fortunately is thwarted in many States, like my own, that prohibit ballot harvesting. And where it exists, it causes a massive risk of voter fraud; and yet this would have prohibited the States from banning it--every State.
It would have weakened voter ID laws by allowing sworn statements in lieu of actual identification, even if State law would itself have required something more. It would have overridden State felony disenfranchisement rules, gotten rid of bans imposed by States on people voting based on a felony conviction--that, too, has long been considered the unique province of the States. This bulldozed over that.
And they would have mandated out-of-precinct ballot counting, preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, dictated rigid redistricting criteria, banned mid-decade map drawing, and imposed Federal standards for polling equipment, drop boxes, curbside voting, and much, much more. State election officials were even subjected to new Federal restrictions themselves.
There were also provisions in there that, as I recall, would have forced every voting jurisdiction, every precinct--local, statewide, or otherwise--to become the effective equivalent of a section 5 preclearance jurisdiction. Let me explain what that means.
Under the Voting Rights Act, there are a limited number of voting jurisdictions in the United States with a history of racial discrimination. Those States, under the Voting Rights Act--or those jurisdictions, once they were deemed to have engaged in this, they had to subject changes to their legislative districts to some preclearance requirements, meaning before they could take effect, some Federal officials would have to approve them.
This would have taken every jurisdiction of the United States--in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West--regardless of whether they had any tradition, any history at all of any kind of racial or other discrimination and said: All of you, before you make any changes to your district boundaries, whatever, you have got to come to Washington, DC, and receive a ``Mother May I'' permission slip from Uncle Sam.
These were not just incentives. These were not just slight modifications. These were commands steamrolling over policies that have long been deemed the province of the States.
Now, every Democrat in the U.S. Senate at the time justified every one of them by arguing that Congress could ``provide a complete code for congressional elections,'' thus superseding State law. And they were right in one respect, that at least one provision of the Constitution--article I, section 4, clause 1--gives Congress some power, but they were dead wrong about the wisdom, the legality, the constitutionality of using legislative reforms like that one to turn States and localities into nothing more than administrative subdivisions of the Federal Government subject entirely to the will and the whim of the Federal sovereign.
Compared to all of that, the SAVE America Act is the precise opposite of that kind of overreach. It doesn't touch early voting. It doesn't touch ballot deadlines, redistricting, or campaign finance. It doesn't render any district subject--doesn't make any voting district or precinct or State--much less all of them--a preclearance jurisdiction. It doesn't force States to adopt same-day voter registration or independent redirecting commissions, contrary to State constitutions and the U.S. Constitution. It simply enforces what has been Federal law for decades--most importantly, the Federal law that has been on the book for decades and says that only U.S. citizens may vote in Federal elections.
It requires basic documentary proof of citizenship at the time of registration with reasonable, very flexible, affordable--and, in fact, free--alternatives to those documentary requirements and a photo ID at the polls, the bare minimum commonsense demands that we make after years of open borders. It even helps States clean up their rolls by directing data sharing with the Department of Homeland Security.
If Congress could constitutionally force every State to count out-of- precinct ballots and legalize unlimited ballot harvesting under H.R. 1, it can certainly require proof that voters are actually Americans.
Now, of course, it can't do the former. H.R. 1 was blatantly unconstitutional for a whole host of reasons, not to mention its many policy defects. But my point is this: Every Democrat in the U.S. Senate saw no problem--no problem at all--with the constitutionality of H.R. 1. This is the equivalent of straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel. In fact, that comparison is almost an understatement. The difference isn't just in the magnitude, isn't just constitutional; it is also political.
(Mr. JOHNSON assumed the Chair.)
Democrats cheered Federal preemption when it was sweeping; when it expanded access and, in their view, as they saw it, their voter base; when they saw it as consistent with their own political interests; when they saw it as a chance to secure significant gains in elections.
They screamed federalism--or, as they put it, States' rights--the moment the focus shifts to election eligibility and integrity. And they scream it even where, as here, this is plainly well within what the Federal Government is authorized to do and plainly within the same statutory context that already exists, that has existed for decades, and that not one of my Democrat colleagues has called on us to repeal.
If the SAVE America Act is somehow unconstitutional as a Federal overreach, then the NVRA is a far worse infraction, and yet you don't hear them saying that because it is not true. This is selective federalism of the very worst kind. The same crowd that tried to nationalize American elections--truly nationalize them--is now engaging in this aggressive pearl-clutching exercise about State authority the instant we try to stop noncitizens from diluting the votes of actual citizens.
And, make no mistake, that is what is happening. That is what happens every time a noncitizen casts a vote. This is not a victimless crime. This is not a harmless infraction. This is not the voting equivalent of removing, however recklessly and wantonly and willfully, the ``Do Not Remove'' tags from a mattress.
The same crowd that tried to nationalize American elections is now engaging in this awful pearl-clutching about State authority the instant, the second, the millisecond we try to stop noncitizens from diluting the votes of actual American citizens. And the American people aren't buying this, nor should they.
Look, the Constitution does not recognize any political parties, and not only that, it certainly doesn't allow one party to federalize elections when it happens to help them and then invoke federalism as a shield when they are about to be held accountable, when people are about to be held accountable, when State officials are about to be held accountable for facilitating the wanton violation of Federal law.
So no--no--the SAVE America Act does not violate federalism. It vindicates the sovereign authority of the American people, the true sovereigns of our system, to choose their own government, and it does so with far, far more restraint than Democrats ever showed when the shoe was on the other foot, when they were pushing an 800-page monstrosity that was itself an indefensible Federal takeover of State authority.
Congress should pass the SAVE America Act without apology. This hypocrisy has gone on long enough. Their constitutional arguments here do not hold water--not at all, not for an instant.
You know, it is interesting that, as we stand here today, the Department of Homeland Security has gone unfunded, thanks to Senate Democrats, for over a month. They have been going without pay. How tragic that is that these individuals, who are working hard--they are having to work hard. They are not wealthy people. If you think of everyone from TSA agents to ICE agents and everybody else in the Department of Homeland Security continuing to have to work, these are not wealthy people. And there are so many of them who, in addition to not being paid, still have to work and have to work doing really hard jobs, sometimes risky jobs. This is not fair.
Then what is the parallel between the two? Well, I find it interesting that the same Department that has now been unfunded is the same Department that, among other things, oversees the SAVE database and the offices, the Agencies within the Department of Homeland Security that exist to help ensure election integrity and security, that are there to help States to review their voter registration files and identify those who are not citizens and thus shouldn't be voting. Those same offices, those same personnel themselves remain defunded.
During this discussion this afternoon, the Senator from Maryland was speaking about some of these incidents. Even though these things appear to be unrelated--on the one hand, the SAVE America Act and its merits which we have been debating, and on
She referred to ICE agents, to ICE as a whole, as a ``goon'' squad. She accused ICE of being out there, deployed, and killing people. This is sad. This is tragic.
(Mr. MARSHALL assumed the Chair.)
Now, keep in mind there are about 22,000 ICE agents. A subset of those--about 6,000 of them--are responsible for apprehending and removing those removable illegal aliens that are in the country, so about 6,000 out of the 22,000. Then it is a much lower subset of the 6,000 that she might be referring to when she accuses ICE, a much broader Agency, of killing people and being a ``goon'' squad.
How many of those people were actually involved in any of the activity she has complained about? I don't know the answer, but it is not 6,000. It sure as hell isn't 22,000, and it sure as hell isn't 260,000. That is the total number of employees going unpaid within the Department of Homeland Security. So this is collective punishment at its worst, at its most indefensible.
She and her Democrat colleagues stand here today, continue over a month into this shutdown--not concerned, blaming the collective for what she is complaining about with just a few, before investigations are even complete and before we know where, when, to what extent wrongdoing on the part of any agents might have been involved.
This is wrong. It is not just wrong, but I sometimes wonder, is this, in fact, a willful attempt to subvert the enforcement of our laws--not just our immigration laws but also our laws that govern our elections, that protect our elections from foreign election interference? As they say in Latin, ``res ipsa loquitur''--the thing speaks for itself.
Before I wrap up, I want to thank our Republican leadership in the Senate. I want to thank my friend and colleague the distinguished Senator from Wyoming who serves as the Republican whip, and I want to thank my friend and colleague the distinguished Senator from South Dakota, the majority leader, Senator John Thune, for their leadership. I want to thank them for keeping us here through this weekend to keep us debating these matters.
We have no business going home--not for a weekend, not for a recess. We have no business going home until this is done. We have to get DHS funded. We have to get the SAVE America Act passed. And yes, they are related. For the very same reason we need one, we also need the other. And for this very same reason that they oppose one, they oppose the other.
But the fact is, the American people are not with them; they are with us. The American people understand that it is not fair to punish the collective for what may or may not be the wrongdoing of just a few. The American people understand that it is not an act of aggression, certainly not an unconstitutional overreach, certainly not an egregious abuse of power, or anything other than common sense to require people who vote in U.S. elections to be American citizens and to end this barbaric practice to which we have been subjected for far too long and which we are told: Yeah, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote, but you can't do anything about it. They have rendered it unenforceable. We are trying to fix that with a narrowly tailored piece of legislation.
Now, if one of them--even one of them--wants to talk about changes that we could make that would make them feel better about it, I am all ears. I have been listening to that for 3 days now--and longer than that, before we got on it. But since we got onto this bill about 3 days ago, I have been listening especially attentively for anyone to make a constructive suggestion from the other side or even an argument that is itself defensible in light of what the SAVE America Act actually does, in light of what Federal law actually says, and in light of what the U.S. Constitution actually allows, authorizes, and says, and I have yet to hear it.
Sometimes I wonder what it is that they actually want. Do they actually want our borders to remain open, as they were between 2021 and 2025? Do they, beyond this, actually want noncitizens to continue to be able to vote, even when we know that in some States they are openly allowing or even inviting noncitizens to participate in some local elections, even when they know that there are thousands upon thousands of noncitizen registered voters that have been detected just in the small handful of States that have, on their own, undertaken a review to see who is registered? They have found thousands, and that process is far from complete yet. How many more are there?
How long are the American people to be expected to suffer through a system that invites, allows, and perpetuates forces that will undeniably dilute and, by diluting, ultimately deprive them of one of their most sacred rights--their right to vote?
Finally, when we talk about constitutional protections of rights, my colleagues say again and again and again that because their right to vote is constitutionally protected--and it is, by multiple amendments, in multiple ways, by the Constitution--that that somehow means that you can't put any reasonable restrictions on it. Well, that is not true. That has never been true. We do have restrictions on them all the time. We also have restrictions on a lot of other constitutionally protected rights, and that doesn't mean that you don't have to prove who you are and that you have the right to do the thing you want to be able to do.
We already have to prove our citizenship every time we start a new job with the document requirements that are far more strict than those are here. We already have to divulge all kinds of information that is far more intrusive than anything required here.
In fact, on the subject of specifically constitutionally protected rights, the right to bear arms--do you know what you have to do when you want to buy a gun through a federally licensed firearms dealer? You have to provide ID, and you have to show that you are who you say you are. Then they run it through a database to make sure that, in addition to being who you say you are, that you also have the right to exercise the constitutionally protected right that you want to exercise by buying that gun.
It is the same exact thing. It is also a constitutionally protected right. And yet we allow it why? Well, because we have laws, and those laws decide how that right may be exercised, and we ban certain persons from wielding that right. For example, if you are an alien illegally or unlawfully present in the United States or you are a convicted felon or you fit into any of the other categories in 18 U.S.C. section 922(g), you are not allowed to purchase, possess, use, or probably even think about a gun. You will be prohibited from doing so.
They are apparently OK with that. If they are OK with that--and that is a constitutionally protected right--why aren't they OK with this, when here, when somebody else exercises that right, they are undermining your vote, my vote, the vote of every American citizen?
We cannot allow that to happen. I will continue to come back to the Senate Chamber every day--day after day, week after week, month after month--if that is what it takes to get this thing passed, but it will pass. We will not stop until it does.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
