By Morgan Rimmer, CNN
(CNN) — Sen. Thom Tillis on Thursday blasted talk of ending the Senate filibuster to pass the “SAVE America Act” as a “foolish and lazy idea” and warned his party that pushing the president’s priority through the so-called talking filibuster would hand control to Democrats.
“I have made it crystal clear that I will never vote to do this. Eliminating the filibuster is a foolish and lazy idea pushed by politicians seeking short-term gain at the expense of causing irreparable long-term harm to our nation,” Tillis said in a statement.
The retiring North Carolina Republican’s comments come as the Senate is locked in marathon debate over the legislation that is expected to extend into the weekend, though the bill is expected to fail in the end. One of President Donald Trump’s top legislative priorities, the bill would require voters to show ID and proof of US citizenship in federal elections, but it doesn’t have the support needed to pass.
Tillis has been vocal in his opposition to any attempt to try and force the bill through the Senate.
He’s consistently been against changing long-held Senate rules to make it easier to pass the president’s agenda through the narrowly divided chamber. And he argued that his colleagues and others who are pushing a “talking filibuster” are “either completely misinformed or intentionally misleading the American people.”
“A ‘talking filibuster’ would effectively make Chuck Schumer the new Senate Majority Leader, allowing Democrats to block every single Trump judge and executive branch nominee, and allow them to force endless votes on anything they want. Democrats would control the floor of the U.S. Senate until the end of the year,” he said.
Tillis, who co-sponsored an earlier version of the bill, warned that some states with more rural populations rely heavily on mail-in voting and he said this version could harm their voters’ ability to participate in elections.
“While I support strengthening mail-in ballot integrity, many states like Utah, Florida, Alaska, and Montana rely on the use of mail-in ballots to conduct their elections, and we should not be completely upending how states already securely conduct their elections,” he said. “Even if this issue is fixed, the SAVE America Act still will not have the 60 votes required to pass it.”
Ultimately, he argued, focusing on a bill that doesn’t have the votes is a misuse of the Senate’s time.
“The only real path to address the American people’s declining confidence in our elections is for both parties to find common ground on legislation that supports universal adoption of voter ID, proof of citizenship, and other vital election integrity measures,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
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