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As President Donald Trump intensifies his push to eliminate the Senate filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, lawmakers are exposing familiar fault lines over when the chamber’s 60-vote rule should, and shouldn’t, apply.
Democratic senators avoided endorsing an outright elimination of the filibuster. Some defended exceptions for certain legislation, with several arguing it should stay in place while Republicans push to pass the SAVE Act through the Senate.
“I would want to know what specific measure it covered,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. “I’m in favor of eliminating the filibuster for specific measures, not across the board.”
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., weighs in on eliminating the Senate filibuster as Republicans push to pass the SAVE Act. (Eric Lee/Getty Images; Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“When we wanted the Voting Rights Act passed, I was willing to do it,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash said.
“It depends on constitutional issues,” she said. “If there are people that are overriding the Constitution and not following the Constitution, that would be an area where I would think about [eliminating the filibuster.]”
Democrats previously pushed to create exceptions to the filibuster for legislation including voting rights bills after Republicans repeatedly blocked those measures during President Joe Biden’s administration.
As the SAVE Act stalls in the Senate, Trump has repeatedly urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster to pass the election integrity bill.
“I think we have to be really careful,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks said. “The filibuster is what’s preventing President Trump from his SAVE Act.”
Trump took to Truth Social urging Thune not to allow the Senate to leave for August recess until lawmakers either pass the Save Act terminate the filibuster. He also insisted that Senate Democrats would do it to advance their own legislation if they regained the majority.
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Senate Republicans are eyeing a Democratic proposal from years ago to change the Senate’s rules to ram President Donald Trump’s nominees through Senate Democrats’ blockade. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I think that the Democrats would absolutely eliminate the filibuster,” Sen. Roger Marshall said. “Every Democrat senator that’s here now, that was here when they had the chance, voted to end it.”
Marshall explained that his position switched on this, with him now having newfound support for eliminating the filibuster as he claims the Democratic party has become unwilling to cooperate.
“Democrats don’t want to cooperate,” Marshall said.
He continued, “They want to do everything they can to make life miserable in America, thinking it’s going to help them politically. Always putting their political goals ahead of what’s best for America.”
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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., acknowledged the same argument that Thune has defended himself to the president for not passing the SAVE Act: the votes in the upper chamber are not there to remove the filibuster.
“[Trump] knows the votes aren’t there to do what he wants to do, in the way he wants to do it,” Kennedy said. “The House has passed a budget resolution to get reconciliation started. We can pass the SAVE Act with the right… the correctly crafted bill.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is working to craft that bill to pass certain elements of the SAVE Act through the budget reconciliation process — dropping the need for Senate Democrats to vote in favor of the bill to get it passed to Trump.
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“There comes a time when you got to stop talking and just vote,” Kennedy said.
” I’m ready to vote, and I’m gonna vote yes. And I’ll stay here as long into August or September as I need to for us to get our work done.”