{"id":35008,"date":"2026-04-08T00:02:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T00:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=35008"},"modified":"2026-04-08T00:02:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T00:02:22","slug":"graham-eyes-down-payment-on-trump-backed-save-act-without-democratic-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=35008","title":{"rendered":"Graham eyes \u2018down payment\u2019 on Trump-backed SAVE Act without Democratic support"},"content":{"rendered":"

A top Senate Republican is eyeing a way to put a \u201cdown payment\u201d on Trump-backed voter ID legislation through a party-line bill later in the year.
\nThe Senate has been debating the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act for almost a month. But without Democratic votes to break the filibuster, the legislation has no chance of passing.
\nSen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wants to put portions of the voter ID and citizenship verification legislation into a budget reconciliation package, which requires only Republican votes to pass.
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\u201cReconciliation has limits, but we\u2019re going to make a down payment on the SAVE Act in reconciliation in the fall,\u201d Graham said Monday on a South Carolina radio show, \u201cStraight Talk with Bill Frady.\u201d\u00a0
\nGraham, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, is in charge of designing the framework for the reconciliation process in the upper chamber. He plans to meet with the White House Friday to \u201cget this thing moving.\u201d
\nReconciliation does not allow for straight policy, meaning any provisions included in the package must have a budgetary or spending impact to survive Senate rules. If they don\u2019t, they are stripped out.
\nGraham says he has a solution.
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\u201cVoter integrity laws \u2014 I\u2019m going to create grant programs, but they\u2019ll have conditions on them,\u201d Graham said. \u201cTo get a grant, you\u2019ve got to make sure you purge your rolls of illegal immigrants. There are a lot of blue states out there that don\u2019t do that, and we\u2019ll try to get as much of a voter ID system as I can.\u201d
\nPresident Donald Trump and conservatives have demanded that the Senate launch a talking filibuster \u2014 or eliminate the filibuster entirely \u2014 to pass the SAVE America Act. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and other Republicans have made clear the option does not have enough support.
\nThe current floor debate, which is paused while lawmakers are away from Washington, D.C., for the Easter break, is designed to force Senate Democrats to argue against voter ID \u2014 a policy that polls show is popular with voters across party lines.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued late last month that Democrats\u2019 objection to the SAVE America Act is \u201cnot to a photo ID when you show up to vote,\u201d despite blocking a standalone voter ID provision pushed by Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio.
\n\u201cOur objection is it\u2019s a voter suppression bill, 20 million, maybe more people, when they show up to vote will be told you\u2019re off the rolls,\u201d Schumer said. \u201cThat\u2019s the problem with the bill.\u201c
\nWhile Graham\u2019s provision could pass muster under Senate rules, it would likely come in a second reconciliation package in the fall, as midterm elections take center stage. Whether it would take effect by November is unclear. He\u2019s eying provisions that would tackle fraud in the package, too.
\nBefore that, Graham and Republicans are eyeing front-loading funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a reconciliation bill that Trump wants on his desk no later than June 1.
\nSenate Republicans are largely aligned behind the idea, arguing that Democrats have refused to fund immigration enforcement without stringent reforms \u2014 reforms Republicans say they have offered and Democrats have rejected.
\nStill, House Republicans are not entirely on board, and their resistance could further prolong the longest government shutdown in history.
\nThey are frustrated with the current Senate Department of Homeland SecuritySenate Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, which carves out ICE and portions of CBP funding. They are demanding the upper chamber make real progress on a reconciliation bill before voting for the compromise plan.
\n\u201cWhat I\u2019m going to do is draft a reconciliation bill and load up ICE and Border Patrol funding without a single Democratic vote \u2014 give them all they need for three to 10 years, whatever I can fit in,\u201d Graham said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to fund the Border Patrol, and we\u2019re going to fund ICE with Republican votes only.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"senator-lindsey-graham-sanctions.jpg\"A top Senate Republican is eyeing a way to put a \u201cdown payment\u201d on Trump-backed…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[230,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}