Thune moves to bipartisan housing package ahead of Trump’s priority voter-ID bill

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is ignoring President Trump’s directive to pass a voter ID bill before anything else.

Instead, the South Dakota Republican is preparing the Senate to take up a bipartisan housing package, saying it will be easier to pivot from that if there’s a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to ask lawmakers to prioritize passage of the SAVE America Act, a bill that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and an ID to cast a ballot.

“Congress should unite and enact this common sense, country-saving legislation right now — and it should be before anything else happens,” the president said.

The SAVE America Act passed the House earlier this month in a 218-213 mostly party-line vote, so the ball is in the Senate’s court.

Mr. Thune supports the measure but is not ready to take it up amid ongoing debate in his conference about whether to dust off the “talking filibuster” and force Democratic opponents to actually hold the floor and speak continuously if they want to block the bill.

When debate is exhausted, Republicans would be able to hold a simple-majority vote on the bill, skirting the 60-vote requirement that it typically takes to end a filibuster.

However, there would be several obstacles along the way, as the process would allow Democrats the ability to offer unlimited amendments.

“The talking filibuster issue is one on which there is not, certainly, a unified Republican conference, and there would have to be,” Mr. Thune said.

“If you go down that path, you’re talking about the need to table what are going to be numerous amendments and an ability to keep 50 Republicans unified pretty much on every single vote,” he said. “There isn’t support for doing that at this point.”

Mr. Thune said he remains committed to holding a vote on the SAVE America Act, but it is “a very real possibility” that it may be subject to the 60-vote requirement for ending debate since there is not yet GOP unity over deploying the talking filibuster.

Mr. Trump urged Mr. Thune in his State of the Union address not to let Democrats stand in the way of enacting the bill. The president argued the only reason for Democrats to oppose the voter ID measure is because “they want to cheat.”

“They have cheated and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat,” he said. “And we’re going to stop it. We have to stop it, John.”

The president did not direct Mr. Thune how to get the bill to his desk.

Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican and lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, said the president’s support for the talking filibuster play was implied.

“Perhaps that part was in parentheses,” Mr. Lee told The Washington Times. “By saying it is and must be our top legislative priority, there can be no doubt what that means. Anyone who takes this effort seriously understands that that means we have to make filibustering senators speak on this bill.”

Mr. Thune said even if Republicans were united around using the talking filibuster on the SAVE America Act, it is such a time-consuming process that they would not want to begin it until after ending the 12-day-and-counting shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

“If we were to go down that path, it’s very hard to pivot and get back to open up the government,” he said, noting that getting off legislation the Senate is debating to take up a potential DHS deal would require cooperation from Democrats. “That’s harder to do once you’re in the throes of a talking filibuster.”

Democrats are blocking the DHS funding bill to demand immigration enforcement policy changes.

Mr. Thune believes Democrats would be more likely to cooperate in pivoting off the bipartisan housing bill if there were a deal to fund DHS. It would still take unanimous consent from all 100 senators to make the switch if the Senate were mid-debate on the housing package.

The Senate is expected to hold a first procedural vote on the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream, or ROAD, to Housing Act as soon as Thursday.

The housing package has broad bipartisan support, having unanimously cleared the Senate Banking Committee last year. It would streamline regulatory requirements to make it easier to build new housing, expand financing options and modernize existing housing programs.