Trump's 'SAVE Me' act rivets Senate
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), among others, speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday. Thune discussed the SAVE America Act, the Iran war and other topics. Credit: Getty Images/Andrew Harnik
The title of President Donald Trump’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act could have been shortened to the "SAVE Me" Act.
Its goal, as clear from this week's marathon debate, is to save Trump from facing a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
Losing his grip on either chamber of Congress would cost Trump severely. His predecessors managed to survive the partisan rebalancing after a midterm backlash. But the 45th/47th president shows no will or ability to negotiate compromises, or even work within the constitutional limits of his elected role. This makes him vulnerable to impeachment once again.
Since last year, Trump has gotten state GOP leaders to do an ad hoc gerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina. Blue states responded in kind with gerrymanders of their own.
But the success of this manipulation is not guaranteed, Now Trump pushes a more ambitious project. Legislation approved by the House and before the Senate would immediately federalize the administration of elections — which the Constitution deems the domain of states.
The SAVE bill would require Americans to submit proof of citizenship to register to vote and to show photo ID on Election Day. More than half of U.S. citizens have no passport, and many lack a REAL ID driver's license or access to a birth certificate.
Besides, there's no proof that fraud is a problem. And 36 states already require or ask for some form of voter ID at the polls.
The GOP’s pushing this bill now — for this year’s voting — as a power grab. The feds could purge many registered voters from the public rolls without notifying them prior to Election Day.
Trump himself said on his ally Dan Bongino’s podcast: "The Republicans should say 'We want to take over.' We should take over the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting."
So much for the intention of fair elections.
There is ugly precedent for Trump undermining confidence in the nation’s election system. Just recall 2020 and 2021, when Trump lost the presidency to Joe Biden fair and square.
As amply documented, he and his team tried to put impostors into the Electoral College. MAGA howled on cue about election machine rigging that never existed. They disrupted the normally nonpartisan certification of results.
Trump even got on the phone and darkly prodded honest Republican election officials in Georgia to fix results after the fact, and failed. His team accused election workers there of criminal action — based on nothing.
How could any election "reform" from this White House look legitimate?
Trump’s discredited Georgia obsession goes on. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee. She was grilled about her presence in Fulton County, Georgia, next to a vehicle full of documents, during an FBI operation to seize voter records from 2020.
The motive, means and opportunity to fix the upcoming midterms following Trump's previous debacle are obvious. Trump's longtime adviser Steve Bannon told a room full of conservative activists: "... As God is my witness, if we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison — myself included."
The bill also resumes Trump’s strange effort to bar no-excuses absentee voting — which ironically is quite popular among both parties in red states. Clearly this congressional bill is almost exclusively in the self-serving interest of the president and his allies. The only suspense is what else they have up their sleeves.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
