Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on ex at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute's
director of Election Integrity and American Justice Campaign Director. What's
next for the Save Act? Now facing a perilous journey
in the US Senate. That's what we're talking about. And Thomas,
thank you so much for joining us on this edition
of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. Matt, great to be here.
Speaker 1: Let me begin with this. You know your way around
this Congress, particularly the House, and you know the power
players in the Senate. Talk me down here, Thomas. I
don't have a lot of faith in the Republican controlled
Senate that the Save America Act or its predecessor, the
Save Act, will actually come to a vote. But what
you're thinking at this point well, I.
Speaker 2: Think you have been through enough and we've all seen
enough to have some skepticism when it comes to any
kind of sixty vote threshold in the Senate. I know
Republicans get a lot of blame whether they have fifty
three or fifty two or fifty one, depending on who
you call a Republican, but obviously not with that magic
number sixty. So what's going to have up and with
a bill in the Senate, particularly the same America Act
which did pass the House to eighteen to two thirteen
a couple of days ago, with all Republicans and one
loan Democrat, Henry Koyar from Texas. But there is a
path I think most people know to get a bill
through the Senate without sixty votes, to have fifty plus
the Vice President's vote or fifty one a simple majority,
and that's to break the filibuster. Now, I don't think
anyone on the Republican side is talking about breaking the philibuster.
There's another procedural path that's being talked about to get
this to a vote, and that's what they called standing filibuster.
And it's effectively what you can imagine it is, which
is making the Democrats talk for so long and stand
for so long, and defend their positions for so long
weeks on end that eventually it is able to be
brought to a vote and a simple majority vote without
breaking what we all know is the filibuster, which was
broken for things like judicial nominations, where a Supreme Court
nominee can be sent through and nominated and approved by
the Senate with a simple majority vote. So that is
the basic believe it or not, explanation of the path forward.
But I'm happy to go deeper into detail.
Speaker 1: And we will, indeed, But let's talk about what this
is all about. Really, at the end of the day,
this is about election security, This is about election integrity.
These are basic election integrity bills. They ask what the
majority of Americans want to see in the vast majority
of Americans at that They ask that those who want
to vote in our elections verify that they are a
US citizen to vote in federal elections when they register.
Speaker 2: It also.
Speaker 1: Includes voter ID at the polls. Again, this is an
eighty twenty issue. Of course, Democrats Chuck Schumer in the
Senate as the minority leader, calling this uh hyperbolic terms
to say the very least that this is Jim Crow
two point zero and all of these sorts of things,
and of course they have their good friends in the
accomplice media to push this very false equivalen see but
how much how much damage can Democrats actually do to
this bill? Have they done to this build or in
house debate? And how much damage have they done to
themselves during this debate?
Speaker 2: Those are all great questions. I want to bring everyone
back a few years to in Georgia, past their election
Terry Bill SP. Two two, and that bill is called
the same thing, Jim Crow two point zero. Then President
Biden famous to call it Jim Eagle because an eagle
is better than a crow. And that's right, that's right.
The Major League Baseball's All Star Game was actually moved
from Atlanta, Colorado, a state that actually has more quote
unquote restrictive voting laws than even Georgia was trying to
put forward. But obviously logic and reason and truth don't
matter to the other side. So the harm has shown
to be effective, and they can call something racist, they
can call senators racist, and especially in a midterm year
where many of these people, these senators are on the ballot,
those attacks that to me are tried and old. They're
still effective now through a standing filibuster for two three fourth,
you know, six weeks even could that messaging just fall
into deaf ears eventually with American people, That's my guess.
But we really have to think about is the Senate
willing to do that? And it goes to the original
question of our Republicans willing to for what you said
an eighty twenty issue. I think CNN even put out
a poll this past week where they asked respondents should
citizenship be verified at voter registration? And that was an
eighty three percent yes. It's crazy to me that seventeen
percent of people say no, you don't have to be
an American systant to vote in American elections. But the
fact of the matter is, I believe it was something
in the ninety percent range for Republicans said yes, and
even seventy something percent of Democrats said yes. That's the case.
And to your point as well about photo voter ID,
because those are the two issues that we're talking about here,
is first verifying that you're an American citizen when you
register to vote, and then when you do go to
actually vote that you present a photo voter ID, something
that even the most third world countries have these basic guidelines,
these basic standards that are overwhelmingly popular with the American people.
So it doesn't quite make sense to me why the
Democrats would stake their claim on this. But then again,
we're about to go into what third shutdown in the
past six months, and they know that for the most part,
people will blame Republicans no matter what happens, because, look,
it is true that the Republicans have a house, the
Senate and the White House, but what I think people
don't understand is that sixty vote threshold that we Republicans.
If you're a Republican, you say, we we need Democrat
help here with so many and we have what some
Republican senators who don't want to name names, but maybe
they hail from Alaska Remain or Kentucky, who are not
going to side with their own party in these things.
So it's a very difficult hoop to jump through. And
Senate Majority Leader Thune has promised, I know, in these
negotiations with the second shutdown that just ended what last
week or a couple weeks ago, with the White House
and specifically with their House Freedom Caucus said hey, we
will bring this to a Florida vote. And I think
the senators are if there's one thing that senators don't
like to do, and that's actually work and be on
the floor and do what they're elected to do. So
that is we're all in that section.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll get to those three unnamed
senators just a bit. You know, i'd have to. But
you know, you talk about seventeen percent of Americans are
against verification of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
I believe that just about every Democrat member of Congress
is in that category. Why why are these Democrats? And again,
as a mediocre attorney, and I'm not an attorney, but
I know the answer to this question. I've been covering
this election integrity issue for a very long time. Now,
why is it the Democrats don't want this basic election
integrity security measure?
Speaker 2: I think you and I would come up with the
same response to this. I think what anyone who spends
a few seconds thinking about the last four years of
President Biden's administration and what now President Trump has fought
for the last year or so is with the illegal immigration,
the border crossings and depending on the number that you
look at, you have ten fifteen twenty million illegal border
crossings during that four years. And if you had to guess,
the logical conclusion is that the Democrats to stay in
power and we can get into a redistricting fire Jerry
Mannering discussion it if we want. But you see that
for years, whether we're talking about Massachusetts and the official
origin of Governor Jerry at the time Jerry Manner of
making the districts the way they were in Massachusetts to Illinois.
Now and this fight that has been so comfortable for
the Democrats to squeeze out Republicans from their seeds is
they care about one thing, and it's power. It's staying
in power. They don't they don't have the interests of
the American people at heart. It's to stay in power
as long as they can. And so to directly answer
your question of why would all those Democrats senators be
in that seventeen percent of this overwhelmingly popular issue to
verify citizenship at registration and to have a photo voter ID.
It's all about power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. And it's the consolidation of power
that they've been on and absolutely there is a desperation
among Democrats. They're fired up. You know, they've hated Trump.
They've lived with the affliction of Trump derangement syndrome for
a very long time now, the better part of the
last decade in this country. And so I fear that
they are willing to do just about anything, and I
mean anything to reduce Donald Trump's power in the executive branch.
Obviously they've done a number of things already. But if
they can control the House, that is, they've already said it.
I mean, there's no secret to this. They're going to
impeach him for whatever reason they know they can come
up with. If they do have the Senate, well that
makes things even more complicated. But at the end of
the day, you're absolutely right, this is about power. But
will the American people ultimately see through that, particularly with
this issue.
Speaker 2: That's an excellent question. It's what we hear at the
American purst Policy Institute are fighting every day to help
educate voters in the public of what happens when one
side gets elected. I mean, look at Virginia just this
past November a few months ago, where now Governor Spanberger,
who came from the House under a Keem Jeffrey's leadership
on the Democrats side gets elected, and she's seen as
a moderate mom, not a DC insider, former CIA agent
who's going to weaponize the government, weaponize the political process
against her political opponents. Which is what you hit on
with what exactly House Democrats and god forbid, a Democratic
Senate would do for the last for the remaining two
years of a President Trump administration. They wield the power
and then immediately will go against everything that they say,
for example that Texas is doing for their registrating, which
by the way, started because the Biden DOJ had sued
Texas to change their maps, and so Texas changed the maps.
And yet that is used as the baseline for why
California needs to pass Prop fifty to completely throw away
their constitutional process to have what a forty nine to
nothing map. And now in Virginia you're seeing the Governor
smamber first signature on a bill to go from moderate
Democrat to hey, I'm going to pass a bill that
says we want to tend to one map and forget
what the Constitution of Virginia says, where two sessions need
to pass to change the map or by a sixty
six percent yes vote by the Virginia people just a
few years ago to say we're going to have a
commission to decide these issues, not the legislature, not the governor.
So it's it is scary to think what could happen
if the American voter does not see that when the
Left gets powered, no matter what they're saying on the
campaign trail, they will cause even more chaos than what
you think is happening today, and more instability than what
you see today, And to completely weaponize the governments, completely
shut it down with subpoena after subpoena, impeachment after impeachment,
not just of the president, but of even his cabinet.
Speaker 3: CNBC needs to start being honest with themselves. The watch
Doout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day
Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy
and how it affects your wallet. CNBC's calls are not
just wrong, they're really wrong. The fast money circus on CNBC.
The fast money circus on CNBC has gone too far.
Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,
it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's interesting to me, you know, on all fronts,
and you know we've seen this play out everywhere across
this country from from Democrats over the last year plus
Trump two point zero. But what about the center right.
They've got to have something to believe in to go
out and vote, particularly those all important low propensity voters,
the voters that came out during twenty twenty four to
vote for President Trump, the voters who rarely come out
if at all. If the Republican controlled US Senate cannot
get this basic Election Integrity Bill passed, what do you
think that will mean to the twenty twenty six mid
term elections for Republicans.
Speaker 2: I think people come down one of two ways when
it comes to the effectiveness of the Congress. I would
argue that if you like things not shifting dramatically, then
you can vote Republican because you know that there's going
to be inviting they're not actually going to get too
much through. That's the pessimistic view. I think the optimistic
view is, hey, we have an opportunity here to take
an issue that is overwhelmingly popular with Americans, and we
can prove to them that we could be effective leaders
even without a sixty vote threshold. And now you've seen
the House pass the Save Act a number of times,
and now the Save America Act, which the Save Act
is the voter regstoration piece where you proof syst and
ship at voter restoration. And then the Save America Act
was the same piece of the voter registration but also
added that photo voter ID part. That's what recently passed
this past week. And so you have a president who's
willing to sign it and a House that had already
passed it. So it's up to the Senate. But I
think the greater issue here when you talk about those
low propencity voters is they do have to have something
to vote for. And you hit on that exact point,
which is you can't just run a campaign and talk
the whole year about how scary it could be if
the other side it gets power, how they could wield
power against you and us and weaponize the government. The
people have to have something to vote for. And the
President did such a great job in twenty sixteen and
again even and this past year in twenty four to
point to accomplishments in what he's going to do. And
so the Senate needs to get on board with the
President's agenda here, and the President I think needs to
do a really good job here in about a week
and a half during the State of the Union and
throughout the rest of campaign season. We're hitting primary season
very soon, just a few short weeks before Texas and
North Carolina have their primaries. But those domestic issues that
those middle of the road voters are those low propensity
voters care about, which is prices, the economy, safety. It
is so great that the president has all those foreign
policy wines, But if you ask that mother of four
who's buying eggs, who's taking her kids to school, who
is not sure if she can go out at night
and be safe, if she cares as much about Ukraine
or Israel as she does about those issues I just
mentioned domestically, the answer is no. And so I think
the President has done an amazing job form and domestic
and that focus has to be on those domestic issues
for the next few months. And so if I was
going to give any advice to anyone in the administration,
is hump out your wins. You have wins. You've accomplished
more in just over a year than the previous administration
could ever think to have accomplished in four years. And
so that is I think the strategy going for is
that education where you hit on it, book, Hollywood, the media,
the education system, everything that is consumed by the American
person is left leading and we have to break through
somehow to get the truth across the line.
Speaker 1: As we talk today on that domestic front, we note
that inflation is at its lowest level in five years.
That's extremely meaningful because we spent four years of Biden
inflation and I think those issues hopefully begin to translate.
But there are facts and then there is the narrative,
and those are always is often at least two different things.
Our guest today is Thomas Lane, America First Policy Institute's
director of Election Integrity, an American Justice campaign director. We're
talking about election integrity and a basic key election integrity
measure that now finds its way in the US Senate.
Whether the Save America Act will survive that Senate is
yet to be seen. So Thomas, let's talk about the
mechanics of it. You talked about the standing or the
talking a portion of all of this when we talk
about the filibuster and trying to get around that. So
the talking or standing philibuster would make Democrats speak on
this issue for how long do you think, because I
think that is a big concern, certainly for some of
the the Republicans, if you will, we talked about a
while ago, and we'll go into that in just a bit.
But how long do you think a talking filibuster would last?
And what are the rules to it all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, Matt. Let's dive in a little bit.
I'll try to give a top line first, which is
you force the other side to speak, and they get
two speeches per legislative day percentator on each of the
issues you table. I mean, you set aside all motions,
you don't let the other side adjourn, and once those
speeches are exhausted, you can then move to passing a
vote with fifty one votes. Now, this does require multiple
long days on the Senate floor for both Republicans and Democrats.
And to dive in a little deeper, I had mentioned
you're only when you speak on the built the standing
philibusure talking philibuster, the Democrats would only be allowed two
speeches each on a legislative matter, on a legislative day,
they can speak a long time if they choose during
each speech they can't. But they cannot. They can't lean
on a desk, they can't sit, they can't leave the
floor during the speech. They have to be just talking
straight through. So those requirements for a speech, as well
as the the limit for how many speeches there are,
will finally exhaust the time, and so we're looking at
something like it could be days, it could be weeks,
and before you can even get to that. The reason
that we're able to even have the Senate gets that
standing talking Philgreust are part of this is if you
were a lookout, if you're at Google and search Save
America Act and you see on Congress dot gov that hey,
this actually hasn't moved through the House. I see that
Chip Roy introduce this bill, but it's still just refer
to the Committe on House Administration. I don't see that's
actually passed. Well. The House Rules Committee had ended a
version of Senate Bill thirteen eighty three, so S one
three eighty three, and that's what the House had passed.
So because it's an amendment to a bill that originated
in the Senate, it actually goes back to the Senate
as what they call a message from the House to
the Senate, and that's what allows Majority Leader Thoon to
bring it to the floor without needing to win sixty
votes on emotion to invoke what they called cloture on
a motion to proceed, because he doesn't need that motion
to proceed for a bill at the Senate is already
considering because it's already Senate Bill one three eight three.
So the Leader will have to get sixty votes on
a motion to end debate on the amended bill before
final passage. Though, So even when we're talking for so
long and debating for so long and standing for so long,
he will still need sixty votes to say, hey, we're
ending debate. So the play here is just to exhaust
the other side and talk about for so long that
they finally actually to give up or that some deal
is made for what we've been saying this whole time
is an eighty three seventeen issue of requiring citizenship to
prove that you are an American citizen when you go
to register to vote and then also when you actually vote.
To present a photo voter ID these eighty twenty issues
that the Democrats will be made to stand against for
days or weeks on end.
Speaker 1: So that that is very interesting because I think that's
a point that's lost. They still need sixty votes to
invoke cloture, even if they go through weeks and weeks
of Democrats giving you their Spartacus moment. Of course, as
we saw with a certain New Jersey senator a while
back who may or may have not been wearing adult diapers,
there's still some question about that twenty five hour speech.
But all of that said, this Republican majority Senate, after
all is said and done, it's not a majority vote.
When the last Democrat hoarsely says uncle, right, that's right.
Speaker 2: You still would need that sixty votes to end debate.
And we see when it comes to these procedural votes.
Even a couple of days ago, in the Save America
Act was moving through the Rules committee in the House
and then eventually to the House floor, Thomas Massey from
Kentucky was getting a lot of heat for quote unquote
voting against the Save America Act when he has always
voted against the rule attached to the bill, which is, hey,
we're going to expedite this and so we're going to
do away with some of the procedure because we want
it to the House floor. And he'll always be voting
against against that. He wants every bill, no matter what,
to go through certain procedures. And so he was getting
a lot of heat for voting quote unquote against the
Save America Act. But when it came time for final PAS,
he was a yes vote on the Save of American Act.
So that's the hope is like, hey, senators, they're going
to be exhausted, they're going to be doing this for
for days and weeks. They're saying they're crying uncle, and
every Republican will be on board to say, yes, we're
evoking cloture, we are proceeding. And then you will get
someone maybe like a Senator Fetterman from Pennsylvania who's actually
a co sponsor on the legislation. Believe or not, we
can't get we can't get certain senators from Alaska to
to say these eighty three seventeen issues are something that
they want to put their name behind. But a Democrat
from Pennsylvania will so there. That is the only the
only hope is that you get those seven crossovers to say, look,
we've shut down the Senate effectively for however many days
or weeks this has taken we haven't taken up any
other issue. And it's it's a it's a Senate shutdown,
is what it's going to be labeled as, I'm sure.
And it's a government shutdown in effect, where they're not
actually working on anything except this bill.
Speaker 1: And that gives me less hope for this bill in
the sense than I originally had. I think a lot
of Americans think, Okay, you go through this lengthy process
and then at the end of the day, you just
vote up or down.
Speaker 2: You get the.
Speaker 1: Majority of Republicans supporting it, it has passed, it goes
to the President's desk. Nope, that is not the case.
So you have a lot of scenarios playing out here,
But the one that really comes to mind is the
argument from Republicans, which will be the public argument that
Democrats will make if they are forced to go through
this standing filibuster. We have so many more important things
to do, or we have so many important things to do.
Maybe this is just as important, but we have so
many other legislative matter to take up. But his Senator
Ron Johnson told me last week that's a croc. That's
not exactly a direct quote from him, but that's the sentiment.
The Senate isn't doing anything anyway because it's the sixty
voo clulture for everything. So why not concentrate on the
thing that is the core fundamental issue facing constitutional republic democracy.
Is that message Senator Johnson's message getting through not to
Lisa Murkowski, we know, but to the vast majority of
Senate Republicans.
Speaker 2: I think you do see a coalescing of Senate Republicans.
I believe Senator Mike Lee, he's the one who's carrying
the Senate component of the Save America Act, and I
believe he was at forty five co sponsor and he expected,
I believe that to get up to forty eight or
forty nine. So you do see a coalescing around the issue. Now,
of course, there is a difference between being a co
sponsor on a bill and saying that you're willing to
go through a very lengthy process that is going to
be a messaging process. You and Senator Ron Johnson, you
kind of hit on this point, which is we and
I'm speaking as Ron Johnson here. If I'm a Republican,
we get the blame no matter what for a shutdown.
And so if we're going to actually say, hey, we're
doing nothing else except the Save America Act, then it'd
be very reasonable, I think for a voter or any
member of the public to say, well, the sence not
doing anything except this one bill, and yeah, the Democrats
are fighting back, but what else would you expect the
other side to be doing? And so it is territory
that is dangerous. But it's you get into the pla
game of Look, this is an eighty three seventeen issue
that is important, and if we can't agree on this,
you know what are we actually going to agree on
to get that sixty vote threshold? So you do hit
on that. I fear that. Look, if this last week,
two weeks, or three weeks, this new cycle is twenty
four to seven, there's something that's going to happen, that's
going to pop that the Democrats are going to point
to and say, look, we can't actually do anything in
the Senate because Republicans have us tied up talking about
these issues that don't actually matter because blah blah blah,
it's already illegal for non citizens to vote, or it's
racist to require photo voter ID. So they've got the
playbook down. They can wait and wait and wait, and
the more the news cycle goes on and drags on.
That's their play is that what are the American people
going to be tired of? First? Are they going to
be tired of Republicans shutting down the Senate for these
two provisions? Or are they going to be tired of
Democrats calling everyone racist all the time for things that
they don't agree with. And I think that's the fight
that's brewing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you noted was one of the most contextual
lies out there that the Democrats have of all the
myriad lies that they are pushing out to the American people,
is that it's already illegal to vote if you are,
you know, an a legal immigrant or a foreign national
and non citizen. That is true based on an honor system.
And if you're already breaking the law to get into
this country, you have to start asking about the honor system,
which means that you have to check a box and
your registration whether you're a citizen or not. There is
no way of proving that, of course, there is there
is no way of very little that you can do
about that once that's in the system. But that will be,
of course, one of the biggest talking points the Democrats
will bring out if it gets to a talking philibus. Now,
Johnson said, if we're going to do this, why don't
we put a bunch of stuff in here and really
make this baby sale because we're going to take the time.
Let's fight for it. Let's fight for other election integrity measures,
some other important things. Do you see that happening right now?
Is there the will to do that in the Senate?
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you brought that up because Speaker Johnson
made the exact argument that I was making just to
friends and family of if we're going to be doing
this and having the Senate just do these two provisions
for election Terry and go through all that trouble, why
aren't he doing all twelve thirteen, fourteen things that you
and I could think of that are these eighty twenty
issues that have to do with making our elections more secure.
Something like requiring all ballots to be received by election day.
Thing like requiring a request, an affirmative request from a
voter to receive a male ballot, not just sending ballots
to everyone automatically on these voter roll lists that these
states can't even maintain properly. Where you have these live ballots,
and here in DC you hear store after story of
a very transient city, people moving all the time, and
come election day or here in DC election season because
of all the early voting, it's hey, I got six
ballots in my mailbox. I got four ballots all the
previous tenants. And so why not a citizenship indicator on
a driver's license or any other identification car that says yes,
here's a stamp that says US citizen. Why not a
prohibition on ballot harvesting or a prohibition on ranked choice voting?
Why not the requirement to preserve election records for a
minimum amount of time? And what are those election records?
These are when you pull them? Eighty twenty issues that
the vast majority of Americans say, Yeah, that makes sense. Wait,
that's not the LAHA already Wait wait what are we doing?
Speaker 1: And why not?
Speaker 2: As Speaker Johnson said, throw all those things? And so
I just listed I think maybe what six seven, eight
provisions and all those can be found in Actually the
Mega Act. MEGA is standing for make election can sorry,
make elections great again? And that bill was recently introduced
by my former boss, Chairman Brian Style of the Committee
on House Administration. There's actually hearing this week on that bill,
And yeah, why not do everything? Why not if we're
going to go through all the trouble of having the
senator stand and talk for that long, go all the way.
And I hear one counter argument, which is, look, if
you do that, if Republicans do that, then the Democrats
are just going to hit back three times harder. Well,
you know what they already tried. They already tried with
HR one and HR for the John Lewis Voting Rights
Act or later the Freedom to Vote Actors I call
it the Freedom to Cheat Act, where they it was
a nationalized, federal, one size fits all, six hundred page
bill takeover of elections. And those were the issues that
were even less than fifty to fifty. Those were only
popular within the very extreme radical left. Well, we're talking
about here those provisions that I mentioned that are in
the Mega Act, those are your eighty twenty issues. And
so I'm not saying that we need to nationalize or
federalize elections. What I'm saying is that there should be
a federal baseline standard. And so for the pure constitutionalists
out there, the federalists out there who say, I don't
know even requiring a photo voter ID, that that's a
voter qualification if you look at Article one of the Constitution,
I don't know if we can do that. A conmerce
can do that. And the Supreme Court said an Inner
Tribal case in twenty thirteen, well, you know what, the
NVRA is already federal law. That's a national voter registration
after next three HA a Health America Vote Actors and
two already federal law that was in response to hanging
Chad's bushby Gore in two thousand. So Congress has already
taken action on elections multiple times. And so this is
just a simple amendment to what Congress has already done
to institute these baseline standards.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent point. One of two things is going
to have to happen. The Supreme Court is going to
have to go back and say JAVA and the National
Voter Rights Act is unconstitutional. You can't do that. Or
if they don't do that, and they haven't, then what
is being proposed right now? Through the Save America Act
is absolutely constitutional. Messaging has always been a problem for
the Republicans, and I hope they get better at it
real quick on this front. In particular, Note that you
drive home the point that it's really the Wisconsin guys.
They are making the good common sense out there. And
as an old Wisconsin guy, I appreciate that we mentioned
Senator Johnson, we mentioned representative style, both from the great
state of Wisconsin, like yours. Truly, I want to read
this from Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist. I think
this is a very pointed and I think it's a
great point. I want to get your take on it.
We talked about the Republicans who simply won't go along
with this, Lisa Murkowski and perhaps a guy who has
acted in a lot of ways out of spite toward
President Trump, and that is Mitch McConnell, the former Senate
Majority leader, the Republican from Kentucky. Sean writes this, McConnell's
heel turn on election security is worse than spiite. It's
about money, and and he goes through to talk about,
you know, McConnell's associates, his congressional aids, former congressional aids,
and what have you writing about? You know, the Save Act,
opposing the Save Act, all of these sorts of things.
But what it comes down to in Sean's argument is
there's a lot of money, particularly he argues, from the
military industrial complex to keep things status quo. What do
you think.
Speaker 2: About all of that. I haven't read the piece, but
now I need to. I need to find that piece
and take a look. It's an amazing insight into what
Senator McConnell his his path to today, which is a
champion for really campaign finance restructuring and tailoring for decades.
And now as the Senate Rules Chair no longer the
majority leader, that's now Center Thune, but where he's at
is the Senate Rules Committee. And I bring that up
because over on the Senate side, the federal oversight of
elections goes through the Senate Rules Committee. And so why
did Save America have to go to the Senate floor
in the way that it did. Well, it's because they
had to bypass that committee process and Mitch McConnell not
bringing certain legislation to the floor. Now our starty to
the committee, and I can't predict the future. I don't
know what his vote would eventually be, whether it's for
cloture or for final passage of the bill. I have
hope that in many ways he has been a great
ally to the President and to the Republican Party when
it comes to Supreme Court judges and other issues. But
recently we have seen I think the quote was a
heel turn, and so I'm remaining as optimistic as as
I can be. Now, your listeners might say, Thomas, You're
being stupid, and I probably might be, but I think
with proper messaging and with a coalescing behind such a
simple issue, I do still have hope that in the end,
on his last you know, years as a Senator, with
Senator McConnell retiring at the end of his term here,
that he'll leave one final gift to the American people
and it's his yes vote on very reasonable legislation.
Speaker 1: Or will he leave one final fu to Trump. That
remains to be seen. Of course, you said you can't
predict the future. No one can, but you do have
particular insight into the process. You know you have a
particular insight because you're responsible for some of the language
in the bill. Am I correct? On that in the
original Save Act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the original Save Act. If I were to
go back to my time on the Hill on the
Command House Administration as a staffer, before my time at
America First Policy Institute, a lot of people don't know
about the Committee on House Administration. I think most people know, Oh, Judiciary,
I've heard of that, Oh Oversight, I've heard of Comer
and Jim Jordan, and I see those committees on TV. Well,
the Committee on House Administration is a much smaller committee,
and it is a speaker selected committee. Now, a lot
of the Judiciary Education Oversight, those members and the chairman
are selected by a body including the Speaker, but a
steering committee you get twenty or so of the top
Republicans together at the beginning of Congress to say, hey,
these are the people we want on each committee. Well,
the Command on House Administration is specifically selected just by
the Speaker, and so it's seen as the Speaker's committee,
and it has oversight over the House. It's the House
Administrations over parking, capital Police. But within that is the
seating of its own members. I'm according to the Constitution here,
where we're talking about a federal oversight of elections. And
in the event that there is an election challenge, think
Marionette Miller Meeks in Iowa represented won by six votes,
just six six votes a few years ago. That committee,
the Community Home Administration, turns into effectively a court to
hear these challenges. And so I totally lost for a
second while I was going so deep into this history.
But it's about the Save Act and why I guess
my part in the Save Act. And so we on
the committee had passed a number of bills on non
citizen voting. We marked them up, meaning it went through
the amendment process, and we sent them to the House floor.
But come early twenty twenty four, we're approached by that
Speakers team again Speaker's Committee, and in close consult with
the Speakers and his team, Hey, we have this idea,
this bill that we've been working on with CHI and
it's about verifying citistenship at voter registration. And we said, great,
we've passed these seven bills already on very similar ideas.
And they said, all right, well, we want to take
this one fresh, simple, just this one idea, and we
want to move it through the process. Let's get your
help because it's going to go through your committee. Of course,
we said, great, let's help. And the drafting of the
bill was done by Chip Roy's team and the Speaker's team.
And then my involvement there at the time when I
was a staffer was to work with my colleagues and say, hey,
how does this actually become a viable product that could
get through the Senate. And that was to add the
list maintenance of the voter role maintenance provisions that you'll
see in both the Save Act and the Save American Act,
and for that matter, even the Mega Act Make Collections
Great Again Act, which is the requirement to remove nonsystems
from the voter roles, to use tools that are available
to verify whether the people are on the rules. Because
we could talk all we want about verifying systemship at
voter registration, but you me, millions and others are already
on the voter roles. So what do we do about
those people? Right, we can stop the bleeding the if
President Biden at the time when I was on the Hill,
is going to be letting in tens of millions of
illegal immigrants, what do we do about those folks who
are already on the rolls? And it doesn't have to
just be illegals. They're even more non citizens. And yes,
all illegals are non citizens, but not all non citizens
are legal. You mentioned earlier permanent residents, the people who
are here with green cards, who receive driver's licenses from
a number of states, and who could be handed a
packet at their local DMV thanks to the motor Voter law,
the MVRN that we mentioned earlier, Hey, fell out all
these forms and they could vary accidentally even end up
on the voter rules where they don't even have the
intent to be on there. And so this argument that hey,
it's already illegal for non citizens to be on the roles,
it doesn't hold water because people make mistakes, and that
can be the voter who makes a mistake, the nonsisens
who makes a mistake by filling out a form that
they aren't aware would be illegal to fill out, or
even on the processing side from the election administrators to
not check. And of course I'm not naive to say
that in states where it has been shown take Michigan
and SECU State Jocelyn Benson for example, where it seems
to be an active effort to keep certain people on
the voter roles who shouldn't be on there. And so
this has been a very long way of saying Speaker's
team had approached and we had added with their consultation, Hey,
it's great that we're going to keep nonsystems from registering,
but we have to do something about the people who
are potentially already on the roles. So let's provide tools
that already exist within the federal government that are already
taxpayer funded to those states and say, hey, use these tools.
For example, the Social Security Administration's death database, where the
Social Security Administration the government is really good at finding
out whether your debt or not and not paying you
any more money. Right, And also the DHS Department of
Whole Land Security their SAVED database. And yes, same acronym
SAVE stands for the Systematic Alien Verification for entitlements, not
the Safeguard American voter Eligibility save and SAVE. But that is, Hey,
a lot of non citizens they have an identification number
because they receive entitlements. And so if someone's in that database,
it remains to you know, it's logical that there are
non citizens should be on the voter rules. And so
we also have a section right after that it says, hey,
if you DHS receive notice that a non citizen becomes
a citizen. People become citizens every day, then let us
know so that you can say, look, they might show
up in the SAVE database, but they're actually citizens now.
And so we were getting the weeds on really making
this a law that would make sense. Now. One page,
two page bills sound great in theory, but you run
the risk of messing up a whole lot of stuff
if you're not detailed enough at the start. And so
that was my involvement was working with the Speaker's team
and with Chip Roy's team, the bill sponsor at the time,
and still with Save and Save America to this Congress
to really make this a workable product that would not
be easy for the left to take to court as
soon as the President signs it and becomes effective, and
really have it be an ironclad piece of legislation that
will serve the American people.
Speaker 1: Well, well, they'll take it to court no matter what.
I know. That doesn't matter how ironclad, and they get
some judges we've seen over the last year plus that
agree with their lack of understanding of the Constitution. Obviously
for political reasons. Final question, then, for you, having gone
through all of this process from the beginning and you
not being able to predict the future, what's your bet passage?
What's the number? What are the odds that we see
passage of some form of the Save Act? Would be
at the Save America Act, the original Save Act, the
Mega Act, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: People always have really good lines to open their answers
about not making predictions or not wanting to give odds,
and I can't recall any of those off the top
of my head. So I'll give you my honest answer,
which is it should be. I'll tell you what it
should be. It should be one. Right. This is an
issue that is so easy. But with everything we talked
about this last forty five minutes, what are the odds?
What would I put it at? And I don't want
to dishearten anybody, but it really it's a call the
action of if I give a five to one odds
that it won't happen, then prove me wrong. Please. If
I were to put money and you're to offer me
even money a one for one bet, you know, say
I bet you ten dollars, that's not going to happen.
And you bet me ten dollars that it will. I
think I have a really good shot right now of
unfortunately being correct. But I hope that the listeners, that
the voters really do put the pressure not just on
the Republicans but the Democrats as well to say, look,
I'm one of those seventy something percent of Democrats who
believe that this is the right thing. I'm one of
those eighty to ninety percent of Republicans who think this
is the right thing. I'm not seeing this on party lines.
I'm seeing this as an American to as the President
likes to say, if we don't have borders, we don't
have a country. And if we're not verifying citizenship, if
we're allowing the world to vote in American elections, that
just goes against the whole tenet of American elections are
for the American people. And so it's been a long
grand standing way of saying, if I were to put
proper odds on it five to one, four to one,
that it's not going to get through the Senate. But
that's why we are fighting every day, publishing research op eds, papers,
talking with people like you. We here at the America
First policys say, look, let's get our people on message,
on board, educated with what is right for the American
people and change those odds. Change that five to one,
that four to one to be a one to one,
or you know what, one hundred percent. That's something this simple.
Let's change this country and change the narrative around the
effectiveness of Congress and the approval rating of the Senators
and the members of the House to be something that
we can all be proud of and to show that
we're the greatest country in the world for a reason.
And when we say America first, we're not just saying
that because we're, you know, superior in every way. We're
saying that because look, we've been around for this is
our two hundred and fiftieth year, and we're still standing.
We're still the greatest country in the world. And it's
because of these principles that we have that we will
maintain this tradition for another two hundred fie years. And
this issue of lection entirety is key in that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely fundamental. And if you think you're grand standing, I'd
like to introduce you to Eric Swaalwell. Okay, that's the
guy who, among many of his left colleagues have excelled
at grand standing. Thanks to my guest today, Thomas Lane,
America First Policy Institutes, a director of Election Integrity and
American Justice Campaign director. You've been listening to another edition
of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections
correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the
frames