In yet another infuriating move from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), the leading Republican Senator is still dragging his feet on using the “talking filibuster” rule to get the SAVE America Act passed through the Senate, claiming that there is not a “unified Republican” constituency to do so. Sen. Thune’s resistance comes despite President Donald Trump repeatedly calling on him to move forward with the SAVE Act by pushing the talking filibuster rule.
For reference, the talking filibuster is a procedure in the Senate in which, if a senator or group of senators wants to delay a vote on legislation, it can only do so by holding the floor and speaking continuously to block the bill or action. This is the traditional rule, and different from the modern “silent filibuster”, which neither requires the filibusterers to physically occupy the floor or continue speaking.
As such, it is exceedingly reasonable, and exactly what President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded of Sen. Thune. Such is what the president did during the State of the Union address, saying, “Perhaps most importantly, I’m asking you to approve the SAVE America Act. To stop illegal aliens and others, who are uncommitted persons, from voting in our sacred American elections.”
Continuing, he said, “The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant. It’s very simple. All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.” And, directing comments directly at Sen. Thune, he said that Democrat policies are “so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat. We have to stop it, John.”
Nevertheless, Sen. Thune has refused to enforce the talking filibuster, as he made clear when asked, “Your message to the Republicans in your conference who are pushing over and over again that you guys can do this with the talking filibuster?”
Responding, Sen. Thune said it will be hard to reopen the government if they do that, saying, “Well, there are a couple things about that. One is, once we get on, if we were to go down that path, is very hard to pivot and get back to open up the government, I frankly think we ought to, we need to deal make sure that DHS, TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, all those agencies are funded, and so I’m hopeful there will be a breakthrough on that that’s going to require some, you know, obviously cooperation from the Democrats, who we haven’t seen a lot of so far.”
Continuing, he ridiculously insisted that a talking filibuster would make getting Congress to do things more difficult, saying, “But we want to get to the SAVE Act. We also, as I mentioned, we’ve got a housing bill that we can pivot back and forth to if the if we get a deal to open up the government. That’s harder to do once you’re in the throes of a talking filibuster.”
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Watch Thune here:
Nick Sortor, sounding off on the matter in a post on X, said, “John Thune says there are now discussions underway to ENFORCE the talking filibuster for the SAVE America Act However, Thune is saying there are currently NOT 50 Republican Senators willing to go down that path — even though they’ve sponsored the bill RIDICULOUS. We need a COMPLETE OVERHAUL of the Senate Republican caucus. Spineless RINOs are allowing Democrats to railroad our country.”