The SAVE Act is Antithetical to What it Claims to Promote

Americans across the political spectrum care deeply about the integrity of their elections. It's one of the core values of our country. But millions of Americans now are risk of losing this core right. The SAVE Act claims to be about protecting American elections, but behind this messaging is deeply troubling policy that could leave millions of American citizens without the right to vote.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal — a federal crime and a deportable offense. Prosecutions happen, but they involve dozens of individuals, not the sweeping voter fraud crisis some have described. Tightening the rules around proof of citizenship at registration is a reasonable goal. The question is whether the mechanism chosen is the right one, and whether the political price being floated — eliminating the Senate filibuster — is worth paying.

The Constitution, in its wisdom, placed the running of elections primarily in the hands of the states. That wasn't an accident. Distributed power protects citizens from the mistakes and overreach of any single governing body. The SAVE Act continues a troubling trend of Washington reaching further into territory that has historically belonged to the states. Conservatives who rightly objected when Democrats proposed nationalizing election law should apply the same standard now.

More pressing is the filibuster question. Some voices in the Republican coalition are calling for Senate Republicans to end the 60-vote threshold to pass the SAVE Act with a simple majority. This would be a serious mistake. The filibuster has, for generations, been a guardrail against the excesses of fleeting majorities — on both sides of the aisle. The trend in Senate elections is toward slim, temporary majorities. Destroying the filibuster would destroy these democratic norms.

Compassionate conservatism means taking the long view. A policy like the SAVE Act may claim to be protecting our elections, but it threatens to erode the strength ofour institutions. Republicans should pursue election integrity through means that don't harm the rights of US citizens or require trading away the Senate's most important structural protection.