After nearly a month of self-inflicted paralysis, House Republicans finally ended their procedural blockade Tuesday — and Speaker Mike Johnson had to make a deal to do it. The deal he made is exactly the right one.
The procedural vote passed 215-211, clearing the way for votes on the State Department appropriations bill, permanent Daylight Saving Time, and veterans’ benefits legislation. The price of unlocking the floor: Johnson agreed to pair the State Department funding bill directly with the SAVE America Act. Several conservative holdouts who had shut down the chamber over Senate inaction on voter ID flipped their votes the moment that pairing was confirmed.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna — the Florida Republican who organized the blockade and kept it going even after Johnson initially attached the SAVE America Act to the defense policy bill — voted yes and made clear exactly where the pressure now lands: “If John Thune strips it out in the Senate, that will be on him, and the entire country should be watching what he does.”
She’s right. And Thune knows it.
The House has now passed or attached the SAVE America Act multiple times through multiple vehicles. The Senate has received it, considered it, and watched John Thune declare there aren’t 60 votes to overcome the filibuster — while simultaneously declining to do anything about the filibuster threshold that is the only thing blocking it. Democrats have publicly announced they will kill the filibuster the moment they take back power. Republicans are preserving it to protect a rule their opponents have already promised to destroy.
The logic of that position gets harder to defend by the day.
Here’s the cold truth about where the SAVE America Act stands: popular doesn’t begin to cover it. Polling shows 4-to-1 support among the American public — across party lines, across demographics, across every group you can name. Requiring proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote is not a controversial position among actual voters. It is only controversial inside a Washington bubble populated by people whose electoral interests depend on keeping the system exactly as it is.
Chip Roy and the Freedom Caucus are right that the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act deserves a floor vote too. Codifying the end of catch-and-release, locking in border security measures, addressing birthright citizenship — these are legitimate legislative priorities that deserve to move. The House has work to do on multiple fronts simultaneously.
But if there’s one bill that has to cross the finish line before the 2026 midterms, it’s the SAVE America Act. Without election integrity, every other victory is built on sand. Democrats know it. That’s why they’ve fought it at every turn.
The House did its part. The Senate is watching. Thune needs 51 votes to change the filibuster threshold and pass the most important election security legislation in a generation.
Find them. The whole country is watching.
