Cloture is not required for the SAVE America Act; Thune Files For It Anyway
If Senate Majority Leader John Thune files for cloture on the SAVE America Act, he is signaling that the impending vote in the Senate is a fraud. It’s performative.
Cloture (60 vote threshold) is not required for this special message bill sitting at the Senate desk awaiting call-up.
The Senate’s Standing Rules have been dissected ad nauseam since the House took S.1383, a bill already passed by the Senate, gutted its text, replaced it entirely with the SAVE America Act, and returned it as a privileged message. That procedural posture matters.
There is no need to “nuke” the filibuster lowering the cloture threshold from 60 votes to 51 to call up the bill. Under the Senate’s existing rules, the message can be called up for debate. After the two-speech rule is exhausted or there is no one left wishing to speak, the bill is voted up or down by simple majority.
If Sen. Thune files for cloture anyway to resurrect a 60-vote hurdle, he is conceding that the Senate doesn’t intend to consider this bill. It’s a facade to cloak killing the bill while claiming they held the promised vote. Look what those dirty Democrats did!
In an interview on Fox News this week Sen. Thune himself said, “We will put the Democrats on the record! […] We’ll get it on the floor, have a vote, we will make sure the Democrats are on the record.”
The voters already know where the Democrats in Congress stand. We don’t need another symbolic cloture vote to put them “on the record.”
What the people of America want to know is where the Republican majority stands. Are they with us or against us? Do they want to allow the millions of non-citizens Biden let into this country an opportunity to cast ballots to cancel out ours?
We noted when Sen. Thune said in the interview that having a real talking filibuster would require the Republican majority Senate to show up to work. He said, “We’d have to have 50 [votes] to defeat every amendment, and that’s not where we are right now.”
Not where you are right now?
Let me translate that statement from Capitol Hill Glossary into English: “I am a weak leader, and my conference is weak, old and lazy. We won’t show up. We will not deliver what voters want because we are not willing to do the work. It would be hard. It would take time to defend the sanctity of American citizenship. It’s not worth the struggle. We have much easier, more important priorities.”
In his State of the Union Address, President Trump called on the Republican-controlled Senate to pass the SAVE America Act. We know the President stands with us.
If Republicans in the Senate believe citizenship matters, they’re going to have to prove it to voters who don’t trust them. Trust must be earned. The good news is there is a way right in front of them: fight for this bill. Make the Democrats talk. Use every rule and vote down every amendment to get the SAVE America Act to President Trump’s desk.
Anything less is fake news.
