SAVE AMERICA ACT

SAVE AMERICA ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 48 (Tuesday, March 17, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 48 (Tuesday, March 17, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1149-S1154] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SAVE AMERICA ACT Mr. LEE. Madam President, we often consider difficult, complicated issues in this Chamber. It happens all the time. In fact, if it is not complicated, we sometimes wonder why we are devoting time to any particular matter. Very often, these are issues that don't enjoy consensus among the American people. We might have a degree of consensus over the existence of a problem but a thousand different ways of tackling that problem. In other instances, there might not even be consensus on whether a problem exists or what that problem might be. This is not one of those moments. This issue could not be simpler. American elections are for American citizens. This is an assertion that is so elementary that its controversy is itself the only remarkable feature. There are 83 percent of Americans who support voter ID--83 percent. Out of 100 people, 83 of them believe that we need that. That is 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats. That is still 71 out of every 100 Democrats who agree with us. Now think about that for a minute. How many issues in this country unite 83 percent of all Americans? This is one of them. For months now, I have been working with colleagues, working with President Trump, and with citizens across this great country--citizens who have rallied behind this effort in numbers and with a degree of intensity that I have not seen in my entire time in the Senate, and I am now in my 16th year here. All of them are begging us to pass the SAVE America Act, not in a nonchalant, haphazard fashion but instead in a way that indicates they really feel it--that they feel it strongly, in fact. They understand the need for this. I have heard one thing over and over and over again: Why would anyone oppose this? Who would oppose the notion that only American citizens can vote in American elections? In this room, I can't imagine any of us would think that we, in not being citizens of the United Kingdom or of Yemen or of Japan or of the Philippines, could vote in elections in any of those countries. Why? Well, because we are not citizens of those countries. If we happened to visit those countries, would that change anything? No, not a thing. What if we lived there for a few years but didn't become citizens? Still not. It still makes no difference. If we are not citizens, we wouldn't dream of being able to vote in their elections. Why should American elections be any different? Why should someone who is not a citizen of the United States of America be able to vote in a U.S. election? Well, of course, they shouldn't. Look, the SAVE America Act takes those dynamics into account, and it says something very simple. It says that only American citizens should be able to vote in U.S. elections. And it does something very important. It [[Page S1150]] makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. You need both of those ingredients to have a good election. It has got to be easy to vote and hard to cheat. You can achieve both at the same time just as you can chew gum and walk at the same time, but this is a whole lot more important than being able to chew gum while walking. In any free society that purports to have a representative government of any form, especially in a constitutional republic like ours, you must have both. You can't cut corners on either one. That is common sense, and yet here we are. If you don't accept that only Americans should vote in American elections, then what exactly are you defending? Tell us why you want to make it easier for noncitizens to vote in our elections. But, so far, what we have heard from Democrats is not that. What we have heard from Democrats in the U.S. Senate Chamber--and I say here ``in the U.S. Senate Chamber'' because that is different than Democrats nationwide wherein more than 7 out of 10 agree that we need reforms like what the SAVE America Act would bring about. It is only here in the Capital City of this great Nation; it is only here in this building--in Congress, in the House of Representatives and in the Senate--that this is considered volatile or somehow unacceptable by Democrats. It is only these Democrats who inhabit these hallways and who serve in these two legislative Chambers who regard this as somehow phenomenally controversial, and what we have heard from these Democrats here is nothing but fearmongering and outright lies. Now, whether they themselves know that they are lies or they are just believing lies others have told them, that is a topic for a different day. I am not going to try to vet that out here. None of us can know what any other person is thinking or feeling, but I can assure you that these are, at their core, the product of fearmongering and of lies. They told us that requiring proof of citizenship to vote in U.S. elections is somehow ``racist.'' The minority leader himself called this bill Jim Crow 2.0. Wow--what an accusation, what a crazy, absurd, ridiculous, and, frankly, insulting accusation. I think he owes the American people an explanation as to how requiring proof of citizenship to vote is tantamount to racial segregation laws. Racial segregation laws, under the banner of Jim Crow, the Democratic Party itself forced on a substantial portion of the American population over many decades in one of the most evil--evil legislative tirades in American history for a prolonged period of time. Why he would want to draw any parallel to Jim Crow is beyond the ability of this Senator to understand. I don't get it. Frankly, the American people aren't buying it, nor should they. They have told us that requiring photo ID somehow ``disenfranchises'' women. I can't think of anything more racist. I can't think of anything more misogynistic than saying people of color or women, whether married women or otherwise, are incapable of obtaining an ID and proof of citizenship. That is frankly insulting. It is something that millions of Americans do every single day--often many times a day--to get a job, to board a plane, to open a bank account, to enroll in school, to shovel snow in New York City; for that matter, to go to the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Super Bowl, almost any theatrical production, and, yes, to get into the Democratic National Convention. To get into the Democratic National Convention, you have to show photo ID, and you have to establish credentials showing that you have a right to be there and participate in that event. So if the SAVE America Act is Jim Crow 2.0, then so, too, is the Democratic Party itself; so, too, are the campaign rallies hosted by my friend and colleague the Senator from Georgia, up for reelection this year, who recently advertised a campaign rally and announced on the same website that to get into said campaign rally, you would have to show photo ID. We are not getting the story. We are not getting the complete story. We are not getting anything close to the complete story, and we are going to talk about that tonight. Look, millions upon millions of married women navigate documentation requirements every single day for a whole host of reasons. To suggest that Americans, that women, that people of color are somehow incapable of doing something so basic is deeply, fundamentally insulting, and it is beneath the dignity of this Chamber and all who occupy it for these arguments to be raised here in this hallowed Chamber. I can't think of anything more patronizing, more dismissive, more out of touch than telling Americans that they can't meet the same basic requirements that govern so many other parts of daily life--not just some people's daily lives but the daily lives of pretty much everyone in this country. This bill does not suppress voters. It protects them. It treats them like capable citizens in a functioning republic and ensures that their votes actually do matter. And let's be honest. There is only one reason to oppose this bill and what it does--one reason: They want to cheat. This bill makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. They are happy with exactly half of the equation and not the other half. But you can't have both and have a functioning representative government. You can't have half of the equation and have a successful constitutional republic. It doesn't work. Here is today's headline from POLITICO. I am not exaggerating this. I don't write the news; I just report it. Why climate champions are sweating the ``SAVE America Act.'' It goes on to say: If Republicans do ultimately succeed in getting a version of the bill passed, environmentalists and some Democrats fear it could damage the democratic process ahead of November's midterm elections and suppress the will of climate-minded voters and candidates. The level of hyperbolic panic, of paranoid fantasy from the Democrats and the media enterprises they control is telling, and it is stunning, because the only way this bill changes election outcomes is if those outcomes have been dependent on votes that shouldn't have been counted to begin with. If that is part of the plan, then I can understand the panic. That is the reality. We are closer than ever to getting this bill across the finish line. Just a few hours ago, we voted to proceed to this bill, and that is because the American people have made their voices heard. They have shown up. They have spoken out. They have demanded that our elections-- their elections--be protected. Failure here is not an option, and it must never become such because if we cannot secure the most basic element of our elections, of any free and fair system of elections, we are inviting a level of distrust that this country cannot afford. I would say this to my Republican colleagues: If we do not act on an issue that commands this level of support, not just