BREAKING: House passes State Department funding bill with SAVE Act attached

House Republicans on Wednesday passed a spending bill that includes the SAVE America Act, advancing the GOP legislative priority to the Senate.

The legislation passed the House by a 217-209 vote, with Republican leaders attaching it to the annual State Department appropriations bill. One Democrat voted in favor.

The Save Act was merged with the State Department funding bill through a legislative process known as MIRVing, a tactic where lawmakers combine unrelated provisions into a single piece of legislation to make it more difficult to vote against. However, while the legislation passed the House with the SAVE Act included, the Senate is not forced to keep the act in the bill. Senators will be able to alter the legislation and can remove the SAVE provisions, passing an amended bill that would return to the House.  

The House previously approved the SAVE America Act as a standalone measure in February, but the bill stalled in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to block it through the filibuster. Democratic lawmakers have continued to argue that voter ID laws are racial discrimination, despite polling showing that the vast majority of non-white Americans favor voters being required to provide photo ID.

“I’ll say it as many times as it takes: the [Save America] Act is dead on arrival here in the Senate,” Schumer said prior to the House vote. “I don’t care how Republicans try to package their plan to resurrect the old ghost of Jim Crow – we will kill it.”

The SAVE Act, a top legislative priority of President Donald Trump, would require proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. It would also require states to establish processes to verify citizenship on voter rolls and share certain voter registration information with the federal government.