{"id":47061,"date":"2026-03-06T11:40:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47061"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:40:08","slug":"trump-calls-for-gop-to-pass-major-attack-on-us-voting-rights-at-the-expense-of-everything-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/trump-calls-for-gop-to-pass-major-attack-on-us-voting-rights-at-the-expense-of-everything-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Calls for GOP to Pass Major Attack on US Voting Rights \u2018At the Expense of Everything Else\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Speaker<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks alongside other Republicans during a news conference about voting legislation on February 11, 2026 at the Capitol in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SAVE America Act and related bills \u201caren\u2019t about keeping our elections free and fair,\u201d warned the ACLU. \u201cThey\u2019re about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don\u2019t like.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mar 05, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a pair of Truth Social posts on Thursday, President Donald Trump<\/a> urged congressional Republicans<\/a> to pass the voter suppression bill<\/a> that is stalled in the US Senate<\/a> after being advanced<\/a> by the House of Representatives last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Republicans MUST DO, with PASSION, and at the expense of everything else, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT\u2014And not the watered down version. This is a Country Defining fight for the Soul of our Nation!\u201d Trump wrote<\/a> Thursday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our Democracy Depends on Rejecting This Charade\u2019: GOP Pushes Bills to Prevent Millions From Voting<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"'Batshit<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Batshit Authoritarianism\u2019: Trump Allies Drafting Order to Give Him \u2018Extraordinary Power Over Voting\u2019<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a separate post about an hour later, the president added<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!
1. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. (IDENTIFICATION!).
2. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO VOTE.
3. NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!).
4. NO MEN IN WOMEN\u2019S SPORTS.
5. NO TRANSGENDER MUTILATION SURGERY FOR CHILDREN<\/a>, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The posts came just eight months ahead of the midterms that will determine which party controls each chamber of Congress for the rest of the president\u2019s second term\u2014which is also supposed to be his final, under the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution<\/a>, but the 79-year-old with a history of lying about election results and voter fraud has repeatedly teased trying to stay in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump and other advocates of the SAVE America Act\u2014and its\u00a0state-level copycats<\/a>\u2014have claimed that the bill is necessary to prevent immigrants from participating in elections, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal and research has made clear that voter fraud is incredibly rare in the\u00a0United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/Dean4IL\/status\/2029218292229931131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2029218292229931131%7Ctwgr%5Ec4235ecafff25072fa8b565ac3f71783af12ec9f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fsave-america-act<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The House-approved version of the bill, led<\/a> by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee<\/a> (R-Utah), would require states to regularly submit voter rolls to the US Department of Homeland Security<\/a>, and to obtain proof of citizenship, in person, when registering someone to vote. It would also force voters to present eligible photo identification at the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of the bill have argued that rather than tackling the nonexistent issue of noncitizen voting, the SAVE America Act would disenfranchise eligible voters who don\u2019t have access to proof of citizenship documents\u2014such as people who have lost paperwork, can\u2019t afford replacements, or have changed their names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ACLU has a tool<\/a> to help Americans contact their senator to oppose the SAVE Act, SAVE America Act, and Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act. The automatic message says in part that \u201cthese bills aren\u2019t about keeping our elections free and fair. They\u2019re about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don\u2019t like. Please reject these dangerous, anti-voter bills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BlueSky post: https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/embed\/did:plc:bg5vuqejktlwjgcdsm3jyv73\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mg6fkhaagk2q?id=4006834346628959&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fsave-america-act&colorMode=system<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While House Republicans<\/a> were able to approve the legislation mostly along party lines\u2014the only Democrat who supported it was Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas<\/a>, who notably received<\/a> a pardon from the president recently\u2014the Senate GOP\u2019s majority is too slim to get most bills past the 60-vote filibuster<\/a> without some Democratic support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump also renewed his call for passing the legislation in his State of the Union address last month, specifically calling out Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). The following day, the Associated Press<\/em> reported<\/a> that Thune backs the bill, and Republicans were discussing how to send it to the president\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the AP<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Senate Republicans \u201caren\u2019t unified on an approach,\u201d Thune said on Wednesday after Trump\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to get around Democratic opposition, Trump and others have pushed a so-called \u201ctalking filibuster,\u201d which would bring the Senate back to the days of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington<\/a><\/em>, when senators talked indefinitely to block legislation. Today, the Senate mostly skips the speeches and votes to end debate, which takes 60 votes in the Senate where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans wouldn\u2019t have to change the rules to force a talkathon. They could simply keep the Senate open and make Democrats deliver speeches for days or weeks to delay taking up the legislation. But Thune would still need enough support from his caucus to move forward with that approach, and he said this week that \u201cwe aren\u2019t there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Absent progress in the Senate, several state legislatures are considering similar bills. Citing the Voting Rights Lab tracker<\/a>, Talking Points Memo<\/em> reported<\/a> Tuesday that 15 states have 26 active election bills with proof of citizenship requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what we\u2019re often seeing in these states is that there\u2019s an effort to send political messages that don\u2019t necessarily comport with the reality of election integrity or the needs of election officials,\u201d David Becker, a former US Department of Justice<\/a> lawyer and executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told TPM<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike the SAVE Act, this would require citizens to regularly work to make up for government deficiencies, digging out and showing their citizenship papers over and over and over again when they\u2019ve already shown them,\u201d Becker said of state-level proposals. \u201cWhy are we insisting that citizens have to work for government, rather than government working for us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks alongside other Republicans during a news conference about voting legislation on February 11, 2026 at the Capitol in Washington, DC. \u00a0(Photo by Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images) The SAVE America Act and related bills \u201caren\u2019t about keeping our elections free and fair,\u201d warned the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47062,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47061\/revisions\/47062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}