WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is pressuring Republicans to shut down the government at the end of this month if Congress doesn’t pass a GOP-backed proposal to establish new election rules nationwide.
Trump has called on Republicans in Congress to link funding the government with the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote — in a bid to target non-citizen voting, which is already illegal. And House Republican leaders are considering adopting the strategy and picking a fight with Democrats.
The deadline to fund the government is Sept. 30. The GOP-led House and Democratic-led Senate have to agree on how to move forward in order to prevent a shutdown, and Democrats have decried the SAVE Act as a poison pill.
“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,” Trump said on the “Monica Crowley Show” last week.
“It should be in the bill. And if it’s not in the bill, you want to close it up,” he said. “So I’m not there but, you know, I have influence.”
The two parties are nowhere close to agreeing on a full-year government funding package, meaning a continuing resolution, or CR, will be necessary as a stopgap solution. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not announced how he plans to handle the issue.
A House GOP leadership aide indicated Tuesday that tying it to the SAVE Act is under consideration to try and unify the party.
“The length for a CR, as well as bills attached like the SAVE Act, could impact whether some Republicans typically against the spending measure are swayed to vote for it,” the aide told NBC News, requesting anonymity to divulge internal considerations. “Conversations with members are ongoing this week. Nothing is final.”
The strategy is backed by the hard-right Freedom Caucus. Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a prominent Freedom Caucus member, has also been publicly making the case for it.
It’s a risky strategy that could lead to a shutdown on Oct. 1 if Democrats don’t relent — and they are unlikely to. Republicans have been blamed in the past for instigating shutdowns by demanding passage of provisions they cannot pass through the normal process.
Another source of tension between the parties: Conservatives in Congress want to pass a stopgap bill that goes through March 2025, in anticipation of a victory in this fall's elections. But Democrats — and some prominent Republicans — prefer to set a lame duck deadline in order to wrap up negotiations this year.
The SAVE Act would require all voters to register to vote with proof of citizenship. Trump and allied Republicans contend the measure is intended to keep non-citizens from voting. Johnson and Trump rolled out the measure at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.
Democrats have torched the bill, which has already passed the House as a standalone measure, as a “partisan scare tactic meant to erode confidence in our elections,” accusing the GOP of picking a fight over a fake problem — it is already illegal and very rare for non-citizens to vote.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1996 “requires states to use a common voter registration form, which includes an attestation under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a U.S. citizen,” the Bipartisan Policy Center concluded in a policy brief. “Illegal registration and voting attempts by noncitizens are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate state authorities, and there is no evidence that attempts at voting by noncitizens have been significant enough to impact any election’s outcome.”
Beyond the substance of the SAVE Act, Democrats oppose the idea of tying it to a funding bill.
“As we have said each time we’ve had a CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way and that is what has happened everytime,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
President Joe Biden also opposes the SAVE Act, with the White House arguing it would “make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls.”
Trump also suggested last week that congressional Republicans should demand “more than the SAVE Act," suggesting there should be a “border” component of the government funding bill, too.
“But you should get much more than the SAVE act for this,” he said.
