Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump desperately wants to pass the "SAVE America Act," which would make it much harder for some people to vote. Just as one example, women whose current name does not match the name on their birth certificate would have to jump through hoops to be able to vote. Many would fail and be disenfranchised. Trump sees this as a feature, not a bug.
To be specific, the President wants to the Senate to incorporate the text of the Act into the reconciliation bill Congress is now considering. The problem is that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that the Act is not about the budget, a requirement for all parts of reconciliation bills. Trump's solution to this is simple. He ordered Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to fire MacDonough. Thune is not going to do that, for three reasons.
First, Thune is an institutionalist and cares about the Senate. MacDonough is a Senate institution herself, takes her work very seriously, and is widely respected as fair by all the senators. Replacing her with some flunky because that is what Trump wants seriously impinges on the power of the Senate. Thune does not want the Senate to concede any more legislative power to the Executive Branch than it already has.
Second, if MacDonough is replaced and the text is inserted into the bill, Democrats will introduce an amendment to strip it. Republicans don't want to have a recorded vote on that since it could be seen as a strike at married women who use their husband's name. Such a new law would hit hard at conservative stay-at-home moms in the South and Midwest, and much less at liberal women in the Northeast and West who use their birth name. One study shows that 90% of conservative married Republican women changed their name upon getting married compared to 66% of liberal Democratic women. Thune can see the downsides of this and wants no part of it.
Third, if Thune replaces MacDonough with a flunky, the next Democratic majority leader will replace Thune's flunky with his or her own. Then, all of a sudden reconciliation bills will be able to deal with anything. Democrats could then put their entire program into a giant reconciliation bill and pass it by a simple majority vote. This would be a backdoor way to abolish the filibuster without even taking a vote on it. Thune certainly understands this and will never back down on this. Trump doesn't give a hoot about what a Democratic Congress might do in 2027 (except for impeaching him), or in 2029, but Thune sure does.
In practice, the SAVE America Act is dead for the time being. (V)