WASHINGTON – Conservative Republicans are rebelling against a possible deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security and alleviate long security lines at airports without the sweeping voter ID proposal President Donald Trump has demanded Congress pass ahead of the November midterm elections.
The deal has tentative backing from the White House, but conservatives aren’t backing down.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the leading proponent of the so-called SAVE America Act on Capitol Hill, pointed out the proposed scheme to fund DHS, and then approve election changes through a later budgetary resolution, simply is not allowed under Senate rules.
The special “budget reconciliation” process allowing the Senate to circumvent the filibuster and pass legislation via a simple majority vote prohibits provisions that are strictly policy and don’t actually affect the federal budget. That includes any provisions that contain merely incidental effects on the budget ― like, for example, requiring voter ID or restricting mail-in voting.
“The core provisions about voter ID and about citizenship verification, those are pretty core policy issues, and neither I nor any of the experts I’ve consulted can see a clear path for any of those,” Lee told HuffPost.
