7/20 UPDATE: Trump pushes House to act by week’s end. Is it all just theatre from a zombie Congress?

Up to 70M female voters could be affected, but, hey...it's all about polls, right? If you’re going to lose the midterms, score early and often. #GoverningByTweet #ShootSelfinFoot

Feb 10, 2026

UPDATE 7/20: Johnson’s always been an eager beaver to pass SAVE, it’s his rowdy members that make it a “circus,” so no surprise Trump is again pushing the House to pass SAVE using budget reconciliation in the four (4) working days before they leave, again, on break (really).* Using reconciliation would theoretically sidestep the need for Democratic support in the Senate but likely hit a wall with the Senate parliamentarian, a stumbling block in the past leveraging reconciliation on bills that are more policy than budget. That way, Congressional Rs can tell voters back home they tried while counting on the (mean, female, probably closet leftist) parliamentarian Trump wants fired to stop it.

The House has been sending SAVE versions to the Senate since July 2024; so far, at least, that’s meant diddly in the Senate (see more below on why). In the meantime, WSJ describes Trump’s speech last week as Trump “made a sales pitch for a bill that can’t pass, using doubts it wouldn’t address,” noting we now have a “zombie Congress.” And Rep. Massie (of Epstein fame) says the uproar is all about scoring political points while they can because anything immigrant-related polls well for the GOP, but that the GOP has no intention to actually pass SAVE. Unfortunately, IMO that makes way too much sense. *That’s of the 18 working days they have left until Nov. 3 midterms; the Senate has 28 until midterms. Nice work if you can get it.

UPDATE 7/17: Only in Congress are there <30 working days until Nov 3 midterms. The good news for us is that the list of unfinished business is overwhelming: stop a budget shutdown just before midterms; pass annual defense policy legislation with (greatly reduced) defense spending during growing Iran reactivity; do something positive about national angist on rising costs/loss of healthcare coverage (dream on) … and pass a SAVE Act the Senate hasn’t budged on for over a year. The negotations will make Turkey’s Grand Bazaar look relaxed. The votes aren’t there for SAVE, insists Thune. Iran war hawk Lindsey Graham can’t help now, and if McConnell returns, he voted against SAVE in July.

And we know how great they are at governing anything except maybe sunshine hours (for days when sun won’t be covered by smoke). Starting Monday, the House will only have 19 working days until Nov. 3, and the Senate only 29—really. We just don’t pay them enough for more, ya know? Gotta campaign. (They could change the calendar, but so far they’ve mostly fled DC when Trump screams “SAVE”.)

Trump polished up a new version of 2020 election fraud and took it public last night, with heavier redactions on purported documentation than the versions 52 courts already rejected. He either is attempting to 1) push the Senate more and/or 2) make sure everyone knows it’s Congress’ fault when midterms go south (see more below). Speech reactions were as polarized as everything else these days, with disapointment from some that he mostly stayed on track. Here are two different reactions: NYT: “Claims land with a whimper among Republicans” (gift link) and FOX: “Shocking vulnerabilities.”

On to Day 19/29!

UPDATE 7/14: How could it possibly get weirder, we ask? And it just does. In addition to Republican leaks Trump may actually want SAVE to fail (see below), Lindsey Graham’s death kicked DC into existential angst about government shutdown yesterday.

The one thing Congress absolutely must do in under three months is fund the government; that lapses Oct 1 if appropriations bills are not approved. Graham was in charge of the Senate Budget Committee and was mulling a third budget-reconciliation bill to get there over united Dem opposition. Now “hammer-headed fiscal hawk” Ron Johnson (Wisc) is in charge—the same sane, stable guy who said yesterday he’s not sure the signs-of-life photo of McConnell is real. And for frosting on the chaos cake, yesterday Trump threw out more market uncertainty, saying the filibuster has to be nuked to save SAVE.

Things could be worse. You could have John Thune’s job. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 7/13/25: The House and Senate are back in town, having evacuated for yet another long holiday break to avoid actual governing. Speaker Johnson pushed hard for Trump-requested House passage of SAVE before the break but a rowdy hardliner group ambushed him; they’re still rebelling. The Senate, finally showing signs of frustration with Trump’s social media emergencies, just threw their hands up and abandoned DC in the chaos. But they’re all back now. The Senate is down two neutralizing votes (Graham introduced amendment and voted for SAVE in June, but d McConnell against) . The Senate sees political liability and administrative chaos and has managed to repel SAVE since last year, but Trump has been obsessed over. In a new piece in The Economist, Rep aides privately concede Trump may need SAVE to be able to blame Congress for Midterm losses. Trump continued his major pout about SAVE by refusing to sign a big Congressional win, the new housing bill, in protest. It went into law without his signature. We’ll update here.

UPDATE 7/3/26: The Senate tossed it in for the 4th holiday last Saturday and evacuated ~~chaos corners~~ DC. On Tuesday, the House caved after a fine display of its newest approach—creating bedlam bucking Johnson, responding nicely to all the emergency! emergency! hysteria that characterizes WH demands these days. SAVE is safe until July 13 when they all crawl back for more ‘interactions’ with the WH. Sleep well and stay safe during a hot holiday weekend.

UPDATE 6/30/26 The Senate evacuated the chaos for home last week; they’re gone until July 13 so anything before then is theatrics, of which the House had plenty today as even more ~~children~~ Reps continue SAVE Act-related antics. A House vote today “continues the paralysis of the House floor, where several conservatives had ground most activity to a halt amid frustrations that the Senate has yet to take action on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a voter ID bill pushed by President Trump.”

UPDATE 6/27, including otherwise paywalled gift links. About 80% of women take their spouse’s last name when they get married. That’s 69 million women, or 30% of the US adult population. Trump is on a mission to invalidate those votes before the November midterms to neutralize his polling damage this year. See more below (prior updates) on how the SAVE Act would negatively impact women and those who can’t afford a passport—none of whom would be likely to discover it until you/they tried to vote in four months, way too late for action. Thanks to Ann Telnaes, formerly of WaPo, for her great editorial cartoon above.

This week, just as the audience was about to be seated, Trump cancelled the signing of the fully bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act to lower housing costs that had already passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming veto-proof margins. And so far he’s refusing to leave his toys or go to bed until the SAVE Act passes, putting Senate Majority Leader Thune back rotating on the spit over the fire. (Who would want that job?)

What happened?

Tuesday night, the Senate temporarily lost its mind and passed a (non-binding) war powers act critical of the Iran war that the House had already passed a couple weeks earlier. (Did someone say “Trump negative polling” and “midterms?”)

With Politico reporting he was “getting pissed,” Trump flipped out Wednesday AM and cancelled signing the cost-reducing housing bill, describing the bill as “of minor importance.” That was Trump’s second about-face in as many weeks. A Wednesday afternoon soap opera finale brought a "fiery clash” between Trump and the Senate, featuring Sen. Bill Cassidy, who suddenly surfaced a spine. ( Trump successfully primaried Cassidy in May, pushing him out of the Senate in 2027. Republican senators were not pleased.)

(Not to worry about war powers. As fast as they could after the meeting, the Senate pedaled backwards. Cassidy, true to colors, even slipped Witkoff a note during the meeting saying maybe he—Cassidy—could change his mind on the war powers act with some personal attention. And ~~Trump pet puppy~~ Speaker Johnson was immediately dispatched to the WH to attempt calming the waters, which may or may not have worked.)

Trump pushes the SAVE Act to rear its ugly head…yet again

Both last year and all this year, Thune and Senate Rs have said they don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act. McConnell says it’s federal overreach. Murkowski is concerned about impact in Alaska. Hidden behind all that, they know it’s a potential political disater: Half of women >60 vote Republican and women >50 are more likely than younger to take their spouse’s last name. The Senate has been remarkably consistent on rejecting passing the SAVE Act, fighting off Speaker Johnson’s repeated maneuvers. And Johnson has plenty of wild cards and rebels against the housing bill to manage.

What’s next?

No one knows; the dirt hasn’t settled. On the housing bill, Johnson says Congress will send the housing bill to Trump again, but doesn’t say when. The housing bill could still become law after 10 days, with or without a presidential signature. But Trump can also try to kill it again. The SAVE Act is a whole other issue. The Senate isn’t dumb; they know it’s a disaster in the making. Here’s what’s reportedly under consideration … but so is just bolting away from the flames, AKA home for the holiday.* Johnson told Trump the House will be back Monday, June 29, but the Senate heads into recess Saturday and won’t be back for votes until July 13. One imagines very hot phone lines until then.

The one thing that is absolutely emerging: It’s no longer smooth sailing in either the Senate or House for Trump. Republican resistance to Trump has been growing over losses like Cassidy, Iran and the economy. Trump’s approval ratings have been net negative for more than a year; with ratings fluctuating but trending more negative over the past several months. The closer we get to midterms, the more Republican fractures we are likely to see—or worse, if those describing an increasingly stressed and potentially mentally ill Trump have it right.

*The 4th of July. Remember? If you’re having cognitive dissonance about our nation’s 250th, you are not alone.

UPDATE 6/17/26:

(Make sure you read below about how the SAVE Act would negatively impact women—and you’d likely not find out until you tried to vote and couldn’t this fall.) Trump really, really wants to get this passed to—he believes—save the Midterms; Congress has greatly increased his awareness that there is a huge problem, with Trump’s approval ratings in mid-30s. Today he pulled a fast one on his own party, conflating three issues. Here are two reads on this mess (both free links to paywalled articles): from the WSJ or this one from NYT. Senate Republicans have pushed back all year on the SAVE Act , which speaks volumes as they haven’t really pushed back on much else from Trump until recently. Senate Majority Leader Thune said yesterday—as he has all year—that the votes aren’t there to pass SAVE. Now that Trump is hanging Pulte around the Senate’s neck again (whom Thune is also on the record as opposing), we’ll see how the latest WH play shakes out. #stoptheadderall

UPDATE 4/22: Why the SAVE Act is so bad for women in particular

…and anyone who doesn’t have a passport (read, affluent enough to need it for travel).

About 80% of women in the United States take their husband’s last name; the SAVE Act is aimed right at ditching your vote if you’re in that 80%. Around 14% keep their maiden names, and about 5% choose to hyphenate.

After months of chaos on this and constant WH pressure on this, the occasional-adults in the Senate stopped debate on the SAVE Act, which would have disenfranchised millions before the midterms, particularly women using their married name to vote. the only way in most states to prove citizenship would be a passport, and process that involves weeks—often months—of gathering birth and marriage certificates from multiple (snail-paced) state sources in order to be able to prove citizenship so they could vote. (Note REAL ID driver’s license does not require proof of citizenship, and therefore absolutely will not meet SAVE Act requirements for voting.)

Never fear though—where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pushing Trump to require proof of citizenship (only passports will do) to open (or keep) bank and presumably credit card accounts. Trump could theoretically do that with an EO; stay tuned.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, was first introduced by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX)1 in May 2024 as HR 8281. Deprioritized for almost two years, it’s now suddenly come alive again, now as HR 22 after its reintroduction by Roy in January 2025 with additional related bills. The current version would require photo ID-accompanied proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, which sounds bland enough, even patriotic.

If passed, it would immediately affect any voter registration application submitted in any state on or after the date of passage. While the states would be required to make substantive election processing changes, there is no funding for states to do so and no phase-in period. In other words, just in time for midterm chaos. Not to mention the included private ‘right of action’ allowing private individuals to sue their states if they don’t think the state is performing all this correctly.2 There’s a reason state legislatures aren’t enthused.

Why now?

It’s been a media blip on and off in those two years. The Republican House passed it almost a year ago and sent it to the Senate, where nothing happened, partly because of negative pubic reaction. But the coming midterms elections are causing substantial angst in certain DC halls and Dems have built a head of steam aheaad of the midterms on healthcare and ICE reform, bolstered by almost two thirds of the public angered by ICE “going too far” and anger about escalating healthcare costs. So Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is pushing the House to get the Senate to act on the bill as a way to divert Democratic Congressional attention, position Democrats, and distract from Democrats’ growing leverage on ICE reform. There are logistical issues to iron out in the Senate, but after calling for nationalization of elections last week, Trump has already signaled he wants this passed, without which nothing much happens in the Senate.

Well … doesn’t everyone have a photo ID proof of citizenship?

Even the relatively new REAL ID-compliant licenses only require proof of lawful status (such as U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or valid visa), not exclusively US citizenship. REAL ID was designed back in 2005, although only recently finally implemented. Barring that, the only real one-document citizenship proof right now is passports. Without that, states running elections are stuck looking at multiple documents, a nightmare for millions of volunteer elections staff, not to mention a confused public.

At least half of the population doesn’t have (or otherwise need) a passport, which currently costs $165 new3 with a routine six week wait for the State Department to process after applicants obtain state-verified birth (and any name change/marriage) certificates for proof of citizenship under their current name and get the photos taken. But the biggest passport barrier that no one talks about may be securing the required in-person interview appointment anytime soon at some USPS office, often in the middle of nowhere.4 Of course, good luck wresting your birth (or other) certificates out of your state or country of birth before that at another cost of time and money.5

The Bipartisan Policy Center says these three demographics will be particularly at risk:

50% or more of registered voters who do not have an unexpired passport with their current legal name.
11% of registered voters who do not have access to their birth certificate.
9% of all eligible voters who do not have, or do not have easy access to, documentary proof of citizenship.

Married and voting under your married name?

That won’t work under the current version of SAVE if you don’t also have a passport in your married name OR a birth certificate and valid proof of marriage/name change. If SAVE passes, wandering into a polling station expecting to vote as usual will be a rude awakening. Which is in itself odd: This is a Republican bill, but half or more of those most likely to be affected by this—30 million 45+ currently married women—vote Republican.

In fact, the in person audience for the first night of the Melania film was primarily older, conservative, White women who called it a Republican Girls Night Out. Of course, that was the heavily-publicized first night. Things have changed a bit since.6 But still. Well, perhaps Rs simply overlooked this issue; while almost a third of Congress is female overall, only 15% of Congressional Republicans are women.7

Who else is likely to be disenfranchised?

Anyone who doesn’t have or can’t afford a passport or doesn’t have a birth certificate in their name—and/or doesn’t know how to get one or simply can’t afford the time, hassle or money to do so. The population that will be hit the hardest is the 50% of the US population working multiple jobs to make an average of $50K/year—the people who keep the other 50% fed, vertical, moving, and functioning. As currently written, the SAVE Act nicely supports our recent twist into a plutocracy, with the affluent implementing policies that benefit them at the expense of lower classes.

If you want to see what that looks like in data from the Fed, click here and take a look at what’s happened in US wealth distribution since the Reagan administration. The bottom 50% of the population — half of our population — is that tiny red line at the bottom. By chance or intent, that’s who will get left out when it costs too much to vote.

What to do

Learn more about the SAVE Act suite of bills; see some resources below, with many more showing up every day on searches. Decide where you are on the issues; maybe you like some portions of it but not others. Then keep an eye on the news. Let your Congressional representatives know now how you feel about the bills; the House is generating the urgency. Click here to find House reps. And if the Senate gets active on it, call, email or write yours immediately. If it moves in the Senate, it will do so quickly. In the meantime, don’t let up on pressure over ICE. In addition to the midterms, that’s what this is all about. Know how your senators are positioning on the ICE issue and use the same link above to keep pressure on them about that.

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