House GOP agenda stalls over holdouts’ insistence on SAVE America Act

Washington — Republican hardliners continue to hold up most legislation on the House floor as they dig in on their demands for the Senate to pass President Trump’s voting regulations bill, the SAVE America Act. 

On Tuesday, the holdouts blocked Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to merge the SAVE America Act with the annual defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, before sending it over to the Senate. The conservative members sank a party-line procedural vote that would have set up final votes for the defense bill and other legislation. 

Fourteen Republicans, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, voted against moving forward. Scalise, from Louisiana, switched his vote in a procedural move so that leadership can bring up the measure again. 

“We’ll work on that over the next day and a half, and we’ll get everybody to a yes,” Johnson told reporters. “It makes no sense for us to stop our very important progress forward from House Republicans because some Senate Democrats are refusing to do their job.” 

About two hours later, GOP leaders canceled votes on Wednesday and Thursday, sending lawmakers off on their Fourth of July recess early. The House is scheduled to return on July 13. 

Ahead of the vote, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who has been leading the charge, said she wants to pass an amendment to insert the voting regulations into the text of the defense policy bill. She called Johnson’s plan “a procedural head fake,” arguing it would be easier for the Senate to strip out the elections provisions. 

“What my amendment would do is it would put it into the text of the bill, then they would have to file the amendment specifically to strip voter ID plus proof of citizenship,” Luna told reporters. 

But Luna acknowledged that the provisions could still be removed from the must-pass NDAA when it goes to conference. 

“If they choose to do that,” she said, “mine makes it harder for them to strip it out.” 

GOP Rep. Tom Burchett, another holdout, said the onus isn’t just on the Senate, where the SAVE America Act does not have the support to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance in the upper chamber, or even simple majority support.

“Until we’ve exhausted every avenue, it’s still our issue,” Burchett said. 

The latest standoff between Republican hardliners and leadership began last week after Mr. Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for a landmark housing affordability bill. The president sought to use that legislation as political leverage in his push to get Congress to adopt controversial voting requirements, such as showing proof of citizenship and restrictions on mail-in ballots. 

Hardliners then said they would block other legislation from advancing until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, forcing House GOP leaders to cancel last Friday’s votes. 

But after Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, met with Mr. Trump at the White House for several hours last Thursday, the president called on holdouts to end their blockade. 

“No more grandstanding, please!” he wrote.