Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I, too, rise in opposition to S. 1383, the so-called SAVE America Act. I think a better name--more, actually, representative of the contents of the bill--would be the ``Save Republicans From the Consequences of Their Actions Act.'' I have some other choice names for it, too, but not exactly appropriate for the Senate floor, so we will stick to the SAVE Act just to be short.

Last year, President Trump and Republicans in Congress promised the American people that they would lower costs--costs across the board but specifically healthcare costs. If you recall, just a few months ago, they promised to do something about the 15 million people that were being kicked off their health insurance when they failed to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. They failed on that promise.

The administration's war on clean energy has driven electricity prices up 13 percent since Trump took office. So much for ``all of the above'' energy strategies. So much for energy dominance. The price of oil is up 40 percent and gasoline is up 25 percent and rising in these few short weeks since Donald Trump initiated an unauthorized war on Iran. That is the largest single-month increase in gas prices since Hurricane Katrina, just for context.

I don't need to tell you all that many people are struggling with the rising cost of rents or their mortgages while the Speaker of the House reportedly told House Republicans that the President thinks ``No one gives a [bleep] about housing.''

Well, President Trump, listen to this: 76 percent of renters and nonhomeowners, asked in a recent poll by the National Association of REALTORS, say that they don't think they will ever be able to afford to buy a house.

This Senate, at least, passed the bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act last week. If our colleagues in the House got their act together, that bill has the potential to do a whole lot of good.

In addition to healthcare and housing, Congress urgently needs to act and deliver long overdue disaster assistance for California and a number of other States and regions affected by disaster this last year.

So there are a lot of truly pressing issues for us to be focusing on and taking action on right now, but are we addressing any of those on this to-do list this week? No. Not even close.

Instead of focusing on the affordability crisis or trying to save us from endless wars, Senate Republicans are once again doing Donald Trump's bidding. This time, they are making his conspiracy-fueled election takeover bill their top priority.

Since we have launched into this debate over the bill, we have already heard all sorts of debunked lies and misinformation and misrepresentations repeated over and over again by our Republican colleagues.

Let me make a few things very clear. First of all, no, this is not a simple voter ID bill. The latest version of the SAVE Act is a Trojan horse, actually. It is a voter suppression bill filled with poison pills and designed to change the rules of the election as we are in the middle of primary election season already and the November election is on the horizon. And for what? For partisan political gain?

The President himself has said that if this bill passes, Republicans will ``never lose a race. For 50 years, we won't lose a race.''

The lead sponsor of this bill in the Senate has stated:

Republicans will lose power--likely for a long time--if we don't get the SAVE America Act passed.

Colleagues, it doesn't get any more obvious than that.

Here is how it works. The voter ID rhetoric is actually a bait-and- switch. The SAVE Act does not allow Americans to use their driver's licenses or other common forms of ID to register to vote. That is right. The SAVE Act does not allow Americans to use their driver's licenses or common IDs to register to vote. The SAVE Act would require a passport in order to vote--something that half of Americans don't have, not to mention the $165 it costs and a 4- to 6-week wait time to get one.

If you are one of the 148 million Americans who do not have a passport but you are otherwise eligible to vote, you will need to, what, maybe dig through the attic or call your parents to try to find your original birth certificate--that is if you still even have it.

According to 1 survey, there are an estimated 21 million people who lack access to these documents. That is a big chunk of the electorate.

If you are one of the 69 million married women who chose to change your name when you got married, tough luck. Your name doesn't match your birth certificate anymore, even if you can find the birth certificate, so now you have to jump through additional hoops and bring your birth certificate and your marriage license to the election office. That is your recourse.

Just to make this even more of a burden, the SAVE Act mandates that you bring these documents--and let me quote from the bill--``in person to the office of the appropriate election official'' and sign an affidavit. That is what the text of the bill says. As a result, millions of women are going to face additional barriers to the ballot than their spouses have to face. When does anybody have time for that? Some evening after work? Maybe on a weekend? That is assuming elections offices are open in the evenings and on the weekends. So more than likely, someone is going to have to take time off from work to register to vote or renew their registration.

What does the SAVE Act mean in practice if, Heaven forbid, this passed and was signed into law? Bottom line: It is the complete elimination of voter registration as we have known it for decades. The voter registration drives we see in communities and on college campuses--gone. Online voter registration or mailing in a voter registration card--which you sign under penalty of perjury, by the way--gone. Motor voter--remember that element of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support of Congress creating an opportunity to register to vote when you are doing your business at the department of motor vehicles? That, too, gone or thrown into chaos.

It seems like the goal is actually very, very clear: Let's eliminate opportunities for people to register to vote and have their voices heard in the elections.

All of that was in the original SAVE Act, which, thankfully, this Senate had the good sense to not even take up, but this new version of the bill that is now before the Senate--we know it was rushed through the House of Representatives and now seems to be rushed through the Senate without a single hearing, and this version is even worse. How can it get worse? Folks, you are going to love hearing this. This bill mandates that all 50 States share their confidential voter roll information with Trump's Department of Homeland Security. That is right. Let me say that again. Every State would be required to hand over confidential voter data to Trump's Department of Homeland Security, which, by the way, does not run elections. If they have any role in elections, it is to assist State and local governments with cyber security, but they are backtracking on that responsibility.

By the way, this is the same Department of Homeland Security which has been found in violation of 200 court orders since December alone just in Minnesota alone. This is who the SAVE Act would entrust to take over voter list maintenance for every State in the Nation? For what purpose? So that political appointees of this administration can go through the lists--again, every voter in every State--and order people that were on the voter rolls to be purged from those lists.

This isn't a hypothetical, folks. The fact is they are already test- driving this power with States that are choosing to cooperate. At least 12 States have provided the full statewide voter registration lists, including driver's license information and Social Security information. They either did it voluntarily or they succumbed to the political pressure by Donald Trump. The results of this demonstration should alarm all of us.

ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and other sources have found that, rather than identifying noncitizens on the rolls, DHS is sending back to the States false positives, directing people to be removed from the voter lists who are actually U.S. citizens and eligible to vote. That is right. This lawless and incompetent DHS is already trying to purge thousands of eligible Americans from the voter lists. If this bill were to pass, it would supercharge those efforts with actual congressional authorization.

Is that what your goal is? Is that what you intend to do? Not on my watch. Not on my watch.

But there are even more troubling provisions in this voter suppression bill. If you listen to Donald Trump or, better yet, just check the White House website, it says, and once again I quote, ``No Mail-in ballots,'' with only a few, very narrow exceptions.

So this bill would also ban no-excuse absentee voting, which is widely used in 28 States across the country. And according to reports, President Trump himself has voted by mail. Over 48 million people voted by mail in 2024. That is about one in three voters across the country-- or ballots cast across the country.

And let me be clear about something: This is not a blue State versus red State dynamic. The list of States that have used vote-by-mail include Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

But, sadly, too many Republicans simply cannot admit that ``Emperor'' Trump has no clothes when it comes to elections.

Why are we doing this? I have to suspect that there are two primary reasons for this voter suppression effort. First, because President Trump and the agenda that this Republican majority has supported has been so bad--not just so unpopular but so harmful to American families--that they are trying to limit who can have a voice in the midterm elections.

The second, clearly, is Donald Trump's obsession with the Big Lie and his refusal to accept the fact that he lost the 2020 Presidential election. Now, we all know that, after losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump encouraged a mob of his supporters to storm this building--the U.S. Capitol--including this very Chamber, on January 6. Why? Because every single court case, every investigation and recount, confirmed the same exact thing: Donald Trump lost that election. But he felt like he needed to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Thank God for all the officers, for the more than 15 Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, as well as the National Guard, who protected the Capitol that day. And I am grateful--I hope we are grateful on a bipartisan basis--that we have a plaque commemorating their heroism finally hanging in the Capitol.

But here we are, 6 years later, and Trump is as obsessed as ever with vengeance: pursuing vindictive prosecutions of his perceived enemies, seizing ballots in Georgia because I guess he is still trying to find those 11,870 votes, sending subpoenas for the 2020 Cyber Ninjas audit-- yes, the one that found that Joe Biden won Arizona by even more votes than originally thought.

So, make no mistake, the SAVE Act isn't about protecting our elections; it is about attacking them.

As the Presiding Officer can tell, I am strongly opposed to this anti-voter bill, and I will do everything in my power to defeat it. And, no, I am not alone. Senate Democrats will fight this voter suppression bill--tooth and nail, day after day, night after night--for as long as it takes to protect our democracy.

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