Leader Schumer Floor Remarks As Trump And Republicans Try To Pass Voter Suppression Legislation, The SAVE Act, Rather Than Working To Help Americans

Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor on Republicans’ continued efforts to push for voter suppression via the SAVE Act amid rising costs, war in the Middle East and millions of Americans losing health care. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

There are so many issues Senate Republicans could be working with us on this week that Americans actually care about. Republicans could focus on whether Americans can afford groceries, or on lowering health care premiums, or bringing down childcare costs, or fixing our power grid. But what have MAGA Republicans chosen to focus on this week? Voter suppression. That is what the Republican Senate is wasting our time on: pushing a voter suppression bill that most Americans do not support, a bill that appeals to only the most fringe elements of the MAGA base.

If this is the path our Republican colleagues want to take, Democrats are ready. We will hold the line to ensure the forces of voter suppression do not win the day. We will debate this bill for as long as Republicans want, because the more time we spend on this bill, the more Senate Democrats will expose it for what it really is. I heard the Senator from Utah last night talk on the floor, and I heard him about having an I.D. when you go vote.

The SAVE Act is not about voter I.D. In fact the original bill didn’t even have a sentence about voter I.D., and they had to put it in at the last minute so it could meet their subterfuge argument. Democrats support common-sense voter I.D. But this bill is not that, not at all. So don’t lie and make it seem like voter I.D. is the purpose of this bill, because it isn’t. It’s just a sentence added at the last minute so they could engage in this subterfuge. This is suppression, a MAGA power grab that could disenfranchise more than 20 million American citizens.

Because what's the core of the bill? The core of the bill is handing the voter rolls over to DHS, putting them through an algorithm designed by DOGE and [Elon] Musk that supposedly knocks out illegal immigrants from voting. But the evidence is almost no illegal immigrants vote, and during an experiment in a county in Missouri, more than half the people knocked out were American citizens using this algorithm. Is that what the senators from Missouri or any other state want? Legitimate citizens being knocked off the ballot? Being purged and then not knowing about it until you show up to vote on election day, and you say to the person at the election facility, “well, I voted at this booth, I voted or this place for 20 years, I've used the same I.D.” Well, you were knocked off. And to get back on is very onerous and very difficult. It's harder to reregister under this bill than it is to purchase a firearm. It's absolutely crazy.

And it’s all based on one fact, that Donald Trump has lied that our elections are rife with voter fraud. We know that’s bull. Even the Wall Street Journal—no friend of Democrats, certainly no friend of mine—said in an editorial yesterday, the Wall Street Journal said the president’s voter fraud claims “aren’t backed by hard evidence.” And yet that’s what this bill is supposedly about.

I hope every single Republican yesterday read the editorial in the Wall Street Journal. If they won’t listen to this side of the aisle, maybe they will listen to the Journal: “the SAVE ACT makes voting harder and makes registration much harder for US citizens.” For US Citizens. The Journal notes “many driver’s licenses wouldn’t qualify.” So, I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, do you want to tell your voters that if they move and have to reregister it's much harder? I don’t think so. The Journal makes another important point: it says the SAVE Act “can’t save Republicans from voter anger at unpopular policies.”

Let me say that again, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page says the SAVE Act can’t save Republicans from voter anger at unpopular policies. Even the Wall Street Journal seems to recognize why Donald Trump and MAGA radicals are so obsessed with this bill: they think it will save them from what otherwise looks like a bad November, a November where voters are fed up with Trump’s policies. That’s what’s going on here. If Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are so worried about November, the answer shouldn’t be to take away the vote, it should try to come up with policies that are popular, rethink their awful policies that have made life more expensive and painful for working people.

If Donald Turmp and Republicans are worried about November, then maybe they should have focused on lowering costs instead of kicking millions of people off health care. Maybe Donald Trump should not have started an unpopular war in the Middle East with no plan for how to get out. Maybe MAGA Republicans should stand up to Donald Trump’s tariffs, a lot of the didn’t like them. A headline from the AP today read: “Trump’s tariffs are hurting American manufacturers instead of helping them.” That's from the AP. Of course, Trump will say that we should get rid of the AP when they don’t agree with him, that's another issue.

Maybe Republicans should fight against Donald Trump’s corruption—his lavish gifts, his pardoning of ultra-rich fraudsters, his administration’s crypto get-rich-quick schemes. But instead of doing any of these things—instead of doing what Americans want Republicans to do—MAGA Radicals instead are trying to take away the vote. They want to short-circuit the mechanisms of accountability that underpin our democracy. If MAGA Republicans want to waste this week and beyond on voter suppression, we’re happy to have the debate and we’re happy to show the American people how radical the SAVE Act is, and how out of touch Republicans have become by wasting time on this bill instead on lowering costs like people want; how they're going to, with this bill, disenfranchise millions of their own voters, Republican voters in red states, by doing this bill.

###