Trump's week in review: EPA deregulation, ICE withdrawing from Minnesota, voter ID law
3. Trump-backed SAVE America Act passes House, goes to Senate
The Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives voted mostly along party lines to pass a law that, among other things, requires official identification to vote in elections.
Known as the SAVE America Act, the measure next goes to the U.S. Senate, where it is expected to face a harder process to getting approved.
Among its provisions, the bill would require documentary proof-of-citizenship “in person” to register someone to vote in federal elections, mandate voters to show photo identification to cast an in-person ballot, and requires voters to submit a copy of an eligible ID for an absentee ballot.
The Trump administration has repeatedly called on Congress to pass the Act, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently stating that the law had “very commonsense policies and proposals that 89% of our country agree with.”
“This piece of legislation is going to ensure that states are abiding by federal election law by removing noncitizens from their voter rolls,” she stated.
Critics of the bill, among them Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, claimed that the legislation was merely “a desperate effort by Republicans to distract.”
“The so-called SAVE Act is not about voter identification, it is about voter suppression,” said Jeffries told congressional reporters on Feb. 11. “And they have zero credibility on this issue.”
In a post on X after the vote, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., noted that the same lawmakers who oppose instituting a federal voter ID law must show their IDs before they can cast their votes on bills in Congress.
