Dem
47
GOP
53
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) will use a little parliamentary sleight-of-hand to bring the SAVE Act to the floor of his chamber sometime later this week. Then, the secret-but-not-that-secret plan is to keep debate open for some extremely long period of time, so as to force the Democrats to defend their (ostensibly minority) position, over and over, providing soundbites for the fall election season. Some seemingly punch-drunk Republican members, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), are eyeing the debate that preceded the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a target. That one lasted 60 days.
It is hard to know what the Republicans' goal is here. Officially, it is to draw attention to one of the few GOP planks that seems to be broadly popular. A recent Harvard/CAPS poll reports that 85% of respondents think that only citizens should be allowed to vote in federal election, while 71% support the SAVE America Act. There aren't too many other GOP positions that poll that well, or anywhere near that well.
The other possibility is that the Republicans are primarily putting on a show for an audience of one, the fellow who sits at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and who has said he's not signing any more bills into law until the SAVE Act hits his desk. There is no chance the Democrats will allow the bill to pass, and there appears to be no chance that 50 Republican senators will vote to kill the filibuster. So, if the Senate tries for a week, or a month, or however long, maybe Thune is thinking he can go to Trump and say, "I tried very hard, sir, but it's just not doable." Maybe that would be enough to get the President to end this particular crusade for now.
If the goal is indeed to mollify Trump, well, then we guess Republicans on the Hill gotta do what they gotta do. However, if they are expecting to derive political benefit from this (or they are ALSO expecting to derive political benefit from this, in addition to pleasing the Dear Leader), we're not sold that is going to work. To start, while it's true that the polling is pretty clear, there also isn't that much of it, and those polls that have been taken are almost exclusively from strongly right-leaning pollsters (Harvard/CAPS, Rasmussen, etc.). This is an issue where a little bit of poll design magic could push the results in a desired direction. For example, there are surely some people in that 85% who don't realize that non-citizens are already forbidden from voting in federal elections, and so think the SAVE Act will "solve" a problem that doesn't actually exist. If you ask that question BEFORE you ask about the Act itself, you're going to goose the numbers for the actual legislation.
Beyond that, right-wing politicians and media propagandists have been beating this voter fraud drum for years and years. The Democrats have not responded too much, because they don't want to be accused of trying to give the vote to "illegals." But if push comes to shove, they could mount a PR campaign that highlights two very salient points: (1) there is virtually no voter fraud, and (2) voter ID laws have the effect, and are MEANT to have the effect, of preventing citizens from voting.
We are also somewhat skeptical that voters care a whole lot about parliamentary shenanigans in the Senate, especially when they took place many months before the actual election. That said, if they do, Democrats have some pretty easy counter-arguments to make. For example, "While a war was waging in Iran, John Thune and his colleagues thought the best use of the Senate's time was a pointless debate about voter ID." Or, "While DHS was shut down, and TSA employees were going without paychecks, John Thune and his colleagues thought the best use of the Senate's time was a pointless debate about voter ID."
And finally, besides all of this, there's the fact that even if some sort of new voter ID law is implemented, it's no longer clear that will work to the benefit of the GOP. As we have noted many times, the type of voters who have no problem coming up with whatever paperwork is needed have migrated to the Democrats in recent years. Affluent college-educated suburbanites typically have passports or can easily get them. Meanwhile, those Democrats who do not have the correct paperwork (mostly immigrants and minorities) tend to live in cities, where it will be much easier for the blue team to organize "get your paperwork" drives.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that he and his caucus have been strategizing, and are ready for whatever the Republicans might throw at them. We'll see what that means; with him, it could be that he's planning to write a strongly worded op-ed for The New York Times. Maybe one for USA Today, as well. But even if whatever the Democrats do in the Senate is kind of flaccid, we still think the Party has a fair bit of maneuvering room here, once this colossal waste of time comes to a close. (Z)