CD336: SAVE America from Easily Voting

DHS would be a required part of every state's election system, receiving information about every single one of us who wants to vote, including which party we're a part of. And after being given our information, the Department of Homeland Security would have to run our names through their systematic alien verification for entitlement system, the save system. But after that, there's no restriction on what else can be done by the Department of Homeland Security with all of the voter role information. And so I actually think that by putting up more hurdles, not just with registration, but with voting itself, and by handing our information over the Department of Homeland Security, the Save America Act actually might be worse than the SAVE Act. And the Republicans in the House f**king loved it. Hello, my friend, and thank you for listening to the 336th episode of Congressional Dish. I'm your host, Jennifer Briney. And today, I feel the need to clear some things up. We're going to talk about some bills that are not law, which actually might not become law, but which I know a lot of people are concerned about. One of the ways that I know people are concerned about, or, well, first of all, my messages from people are making it clear that there's confusion. But also if you go on congress.gov and you look at the most viewed bills, number one is the SAVE Act and number three is the Save America Act. And this is despite the fact that the SAVE Act, sitting at number one, people are looking it up even though it has been long dead. And so these two bills and where they're standing are clearly confusing people. And what the threats are from the bills are confusing people too. And so what really set me off and made me feel like I had to make a public episode about this, because I've already done sort of an episode about this. It's not as detailed. But for people that pay for the show on Patreon, you've already kind of heard some of this information, that I heard Meryl Streep, the goat, the legend, love her. But she went on Stephen Colbert recently and said this. The SAVE America Act, if that passes, all the married women that have changed their names are going to have to go to the registrar and prove that they are who they are. In other words, to your voting registrar. This is what I understand. Otherwise, when you get to the voting booth in November, you might be disqualified because your name doesn't, on your birth certificate, doesn't match your name on the voting rolls. So everybody has to get... And this is such a pain in the neck because you have to go but do it, because otherwise you'll be turned away. And I think that women need to be heard, especially when they're coming. Oh, Meryl. I appreciate that she's talking about this, but she is clearly confusing the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act. She's not entirely wrong, but she's certainly not right. And I have heard so many people trying to inform others in very similar ways and just not understanding the details. And so today, we're going to clear this up for you so that you'll know the difference between the bills and the executive orders and everything that's going on. So today, here's what we're going to do. You're going to learn about the SAVE Act, the original version, and you're going to learn why it died. And then we're going to learn about the SAVE America Act. It's Nasty or Twin. And then by learning those details, you're going to understand why both of these bills are being correctly branded as voter suppression bills. And most importantly, you're going to learn how you can protect your own vote should this or any bills like these get dingle-buried into law as King Trump wishes. Or even if they don't, because the main thing that we all need to understand is that the party that is currently in power, the Republicans, are trying to cheat to keep their power. The SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, various executive orders, and the continuation of election related history going back decades. The big picture is what we need to focus on. And so today, first we're going to zoom in, but then we're going to zoom out and examine how to protect ourselves. And so as is the case with so many scandals, our current election related chaos started with Donald Trump. In an executive order he issued on March 25, 2025. Now if his executive order had been allowed by the courts to be enforced, which it wasn't, but he would have required proof of citizenship to be submitted when registering to vote in person or by mail. And the list of documents that would be acceptable to Trump only included a passport, a real ID that indicates the person is a citizen. And you should know that most real IDs do not comply with this requirement because the legal US residents who are not US citizens are allowed to get real IDs. And so at this moment, there are only five states where you could use your real ID in order to register to vote. And those five states are Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington. And so only real IDs from five states would be allowed to be used. You could use a military identification card that indicates your citizenship. And by the way, almost none of them do. Or you could use another government-issued ID that indicates that a person is a citizen. So in reality, unless you live in those five states, you would need a passport in order to register to vote if Donald Trump had his way. So like, you couldn't use your birth certificate, you couldn't use your birth certificate, plus a marriage certificate. If your name changed, this was just a wildly inadequate list. Donald Trump also wanted to, via his executive order, change the voter registration process by giving the Department of Homeland Security and the DOGE administrator, remember when that was a thing? Well, he wanted the Department of Homeland Security and his imaginary department to have oversight over each state's voter rules, which is clearly unconstitutional as our elections are administered by the states. Donald Trump also, via his executive order, wanted to punish states that count ballots that are mailed in and that arrive after election day. And you should know that most of the provisions in this executive order were almost immediately blocked by the courts. However, the part of the executive order that said that ballots have to be in by election day or the federal government can punish the states, that part was allowed to stand. And we should keep that in mind. But as a result of the court slapping down Trump's unilateral attempt to make it hard for some and impossible for many of us to register to vote, the Republicans in Congress, Trump's loyal sheep, invented the SAVE Act. Here's Republican Representative from Wisconsin, Representative Brian Steele. The SAVE Act is lined with President Trump's recent executive order, preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections, which will help restore trust in American elections, enhance election administration, and make our elections secure. This legislation is just one step that we can take to ensure President Trump's executive order could not be undone. So, as has been the case for the last one year and four months, Republicans are in lockstep with Donald Trump. But one thing that I think you need to know before we continue with the examination of their bills, you need to know that it has been illegal for non-citizens to vote in elections for President or members of Congress since 1996. Non-citizens are only allowed to vote in some local elections in only some states, so like for school board or city council, but never for federal offices. And as a result, it is very rare for non-citizens to vote. And this is not a guess, this is a studied fact. In 2017, the Brennan Center for Justice conducted a massive study looking at the 2016 election and found that out of the 23.5 million votes that they analyzed, only 30 potential cases of non-citizens, even trying to vote, was referred for prosecution. And even the conservative as a MAGA hat heritage foundation, which has a big election fraud map on their website. Here's the thing, as I tell you the source of this, the Heritage Foundation is one of the organizations that is aggressively pushing the idea that election fraud is a huge problem in the United States. But in their own data, because I really went down the rabbit hole on this one, when you filter their own data for ineligible voting and you go through the cases one by one, you will find that in their data going back to the year 2000, they have only found 81 cases of non-citizens who were proven to have voted in a federal election. And some of those people have served serious prison time, like years, and most of those were deported as a result. And so to break that down a bit more, those 81 non-citizen voters were not distributed evenly among our states. 30 of our 50 states had exactly zero proven cases of non-citizens voting in federal elections in the last 26 years. And of the 81 non-citizen voters, 12% of them were in Illinois, 17% of them were in Florida, and 30% of them were in North Carolina. Those were the only states to hit double digits of non-citizens voting over the course of 26 years. But let's marinate in this big picture. 81 non-citizens have been proven to have voted in the whole country in the last 26 years, according to the Heritage Foundation's election fraud map. And so if Heritage Foundation can't find the voter fraud, it's not there. Because these are the guys who are looking to maximize this statistic. Because the Heritage Guys are the literal authors of Project 2025. It's Heritage Foundation people in their governing Bible that's been adopted by the Trump administration. These are the people pushing the idea that requiring proof of citizenship to register. And all the hurdles that I'm going to tell you about today that we would have to jump over in order to register as a result, it's the Heritage Foundation that's saying it's all necessary and urgent because non-citizens voting in our elections is a serious problem that needs a national solution now. And they can't seem to find more than 81 proven instances of that problem happening. Because while the ideal number of non-citizens voting is zero, let's put 81 in perspective. In those same 26 years, about 1.35 billion ballots have been cast in the United States general and midterm elections. And because a few of these people, a few of the 81, got away with voting more than once, let's be generous and say that about 100 ballots were proven to have been cast by illegal aliens during those years. That's 100 ballots out of 1.35 billion ballots cast, which rounds to 0.0000007% of ballots cast. That is 7 zeros before I even get to a number to round, which rounds to 0. Which means that if the ideal number of non-citizens voting in our elections is zero, well, we did it. So in my analysis of these bills today, I am going forward with the educated assumption that non-citizens voting in federal elections is a problem that we, as a nation, have already solved. So look at that, some good news for a change. But you wouldn't know this good news if you were watching Fox News, because Fox News is one of the outlets that is pushing the bullsh- Fox News hosts and opinion pieces have repeatedly emphasized that they have serious concerns about non-citizens voting in our elections, and they openly support the proof of citizenship requirements that the cheater-in-chief Donald Trump is pushing for. And so I just want to take a second to remind you that if you have a cable bundle, you are paying $2 a month for Fox News, whether you watch it or not. You are supporting Fox News monetarily if you have cable on your television set. And so if you appreciate learning the actual truth by someone who went through the data, I would hope that you would support Congressional Dish. And you can do that by going on the Support the Show page on congressionaldish.com. We take Venmos. I love the Venmos. You guys are giving me lots of therapy lately. If you want last week in Congress episodes, go sign up on Patreon. We also take PayPal's and Bitcoins and Zells and Pay-for-checks. But please support this show because I am trying to combat Fox News and I don't have money coming from every single cable subscriber in the United States. So thank you. But anyway, I do consider it really good news to know now that I've done the research that non-citizens voting in our election is something that we've already solved because we have so many problems in this country. And so to learn that we have done such a good job with something, I can't remember the last time I researched something and found out that we were doing better than I've been led to believe. But that educated assumption does lead us to an important question, which is if non-citizens voting in our elections is not really a problem, then what are the Republicans up to? Like why do they insist it's a problem when it's not? What do they want? Well, that's where we can let the past be our guide. Because if you look at the Republican Party's actions, Republicans have wanted fewer of us to vote for many, many elections and the reasons that they give us, they change, but the effects of their actions have a lot in common. So for example, in a tactic that they've been using since at least the year I was born in 1982, Republicans have used so-called caging lists to get people kicked off of voter registration rolls. Now, caging is one of voters registration status is challenged because of an undeliverable piece of mail. So basically, the cheaters send something that looks like junk mail to a group of homes inhabited by people that they prefer not be able to vote. And if the people in those homes don't pick up the junk mail, it gets returned to sender, the sender being the Republican Party. The Republican Party then uses that return junk mail to challenge that person's residency, saying that because the party got the mail back, that person probably doesn't live there anymore. And sometimes that person who does live there and is eligible to vote shows up to the place where they have voted in the last election and they're told, sorry, you aren't registered anymore, so we can't give you a ballot, which means that voter has been purged, mission accomplished. Now, the first time the Republicans did this that I'm aware of was in 1981, although I should tell you that the lawsuit about all this, it says that the Republican National Committee had employed these illegal strategies for quote, a number of years under the guise of ballot security to harass and intimidate duly qualified black and Hispanic voters for the purpose and with the effect of discouraging these voters from casting their ballots in federal and state elections, unquote. And so the Democratic Party knows something, but for me, the first instance I know of this was in 1981, which is when the Republicans mailed letters to people in black and Hispanic districts in New Jersey, whose names were on old voter registration lists. The envelopes on the letters requested that the letters not be forwarded, but instead be returned to sender. The Republican National Committee got 45,000 letters returned from the black and Hispanic districts, and then the RNC challenged the voter registrations of those 45,000 people. But election officials in New Jersey recognized that the list that the RNC used were old, and they refused to purge the voters. But not giving up on stopping minorities from voting after the New Jersey election officials refused to purge voters as requested by the Republican Party, the Republicans hired county deputy sheriffs and local policemen to patrol polling places in the black and Hispanic districts that they were targeting, calling their armed goons the quote, national ballot security task force unquote. The goons then questioned voters, disrupted the polling place operations, and physically harassed poll workers who were helping people to vote. And after the Democratic Party sued the Republican Party for all of their voter suppression and physical harassment of voters and poll workers, the two parties entered into legally binding agreement, a consent decree that basically said that the RNC isn't allowed to send goons to intimidate voters or target minorities her voter role purges anymore. But that consent decree didn't stop them. In 1986, Republicans in Louisiana this time sent letters to black voters and then challenged the voter registrations of the people whose letters were returned to the Republican Party. In the lawsuits that followed, we learned from an RNC memo that the Republicans had hoped to quote, eliminate at least 60,000 to 80,000 folks from the rolls unquote. And the memo said that if accomplished quote, this could keep the black vote down considerably unquote. The Republicans also pulled the caging list cheating scheme in 2004 and on a much larger scale. So for example, in Ohio, the Republicans sent tens of thousands of letters and at least two batches, which the RNC chairman at the time said at a press conference was being done to combat voter fraud, the same bullshit that they're saying now. And as a result of the letters that were returned, Republicans challenged the voter registrations of 35,000 people, which were disproportionately in African American precincts, according to court documents. But they didn't just cage voters in Ohio in 2004. Republicans sent letters to more than half a million voters total in nine states in 2004. And they challenged the registrations of at least 77,000 Americans between 2004 and 2006. And I remember this became a pretty huge scandal in 2007. I remember watching hearings on C-SPAN about it after the George W. Bush administration fired U.S. attorneys who had refused to prosecute both voter fraud cases. Also in 2004, you should know that there were intimidation tactics again. In fact, in November of 2004, a restraining order was issued by a judge against people working for our current Republican Senate Majority Leader, John Thune. The judge ordered the Thune operatives to stop following Native Americans to polling places and copying their license plates in actions that the judge concluded resulted in quote, the intimidation of prospective Native American voters, unquote. That was being done for our current Republican Senate Majority Leader, John Thune. And this is far from an exhaustive list of Republican cheating, because they have tried other ways to keep people from voting. They purged thousands of disproportionately black eligible voters from the registration lists in Florida in the year 2000, which Republicans said was an attempt to keep felons from voting. And when in power, Republicans have closed polling places and districts where there are more Democratic voters, Republicans have reduced the hours that polling places are open, creating long lines in Democratic districts, which makes it harder for people to vote in the middle of a workday. Over and over again, election after election, Republicans make it harder for us to vote. And it's likely to continue because the consent decree that legally barred Republicans from sending out caging letters and their goons, that expired in 2017. And so there are fewer guardrails now than there were during most of my life. And so as I analyze the bills being written in the 119th Republican controlled Congress, bills aggressively being lobbied for by their master, President Donald Trump, well, in my analysis, I'm assuming bad faith by the Republican Party, because one, the problem they say they are trying to solve isn't real. And two, their past behavior should be taken into account when judging their current behavior. And their past behavior includes a lot of cheating, much of it illegal, with the clear goal of making it harder for us to vote. And so with that background in mind, let's take a look at the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act was introduced by Chip Roy, who represents the Hill Country west of Austin and San Antonio, Texas. And as you heard, Representative Brian Steele already admit the SAVE Act was an attempt to make Donald Trump's executive order a real law. And so just like in Trump's executive order, the SAVE Act requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. But the list of documents that we could use to provide as proof of our citizenship, it was longer. And it included a US passport, a government issued photo ID and a birth certificate. You could also use a real ID that indicates that you are a citizen. So once again, there's only five states that would qualify. You could also use a military identification card, plus a US military record showing that the applicant was born in the United States. You could use a government issued photo ID showing that the applicant's place of birth was in the US. You could use a final adoption decree showing the applicant's name and that the applicant was born in the US. You could use a naturalization certificate, or you could use an American Indian card issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Now, for those without those exact documents, each state would have only 30 days to establish a process that allows applicants to, quote, submit other evidence, unquote, that would prove their citizenship. That's as detailed as it gets. And the bill allows states to use other databases to make citizenship determinations. So there's one database that the states could use from the Department of Homeland Security, which is called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, the SAVE system. The states could also use the Social Security Administration or state agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles that issue IDs. But as a part of that made up in less than one month state process, the election official checking the paperwork would have to sign an affidavit, pinky promising that the person's documents were sufficient proof. And so basically the decider of who gets to register to vote and who doesn't is the election official in whatever state process is very quickly invented. But if an election official registers someone to vote, who quote, fails to present documentary proof of US citizenship, unquote, so not even if they register a non-citizen, just if they register one of us without the proof, the election official would become subject to criminal penalties, which means that election officials to protect their own asses are heavily incentivized by the SAVE Act to err on the side of caution and not register people to vote. But even for those of us who have the perfect documents, this bill, the SAVE Act, would have made it harder for all of us to register to vote. And so in states that don't allow same day voter registration, if you register to vote by mail, you would still have to go in person to show election officials your proof of citizenship before the voter registration deadline. And you can't just show it on election day, you would have to make a special trip just to register. And again, this hurdle would be in place for states that don't allow election day registration, and that's more than half the states in this country. And for people in states where it is legal to register on election day, it's a bit easier for you because in those states, you could submit your proof of citizenship on election day. But in a beautiful backfire, MAGA might end up regretting this discrepancy because the 21 states that allow election day registration are mainly blue states. There's not a single state that allows election day registration in the south, which means everyone in the south would have to get off their couches, get off their asses, and go in person to prove that they're citizens before the registration deadline, assuming they even know when that is. And all of these changes would be effective on the date of enactment, which if it was enacted right now would be in the middle of our election. Although to be fair, the House intended for this to be enacted last year because the SAVE Act passed the House on April 10, 2025. It's been a full year. It passed 220 to 208 with every single Republican voting yes, along with four Democrats who are Henry Quayar of South Texas, Jared Golden of Northern rural Maine, Marie Perez Gloozenkamp of Southwest Washington State, and Ed Case of Honolulu, Hawaii. Those four Democrats and every single Republican voted for the bill, despite all of the obvious problems that I think are self-evident. And despite this problem, with the list of documents that would be accepted as proof of citizenship, here's Democratic Representative Deborah Ross of California. This backward legislation would immediately disenfranchise the 69 million women who have changed their names after marriage or divorce and do not have a matching birth certificate. There is no cure in this bill. Now the Republicans argued that this wasn't a problem with the original SAVE Act. Here's Representative Stephanie Beis of Oklahoma. The claim is that it will disenfranchise married women and others who might have changed their name because the documentation might show two different names. But the SAVE Act itself addresses this point, Mr. Speaker, in the text. Page 14, line nine, directs the states to create a process for addressing this exact issue. But here's Democratic Representative Joe Morell of New York. Hate to disagree with my dear friend from Oklahoma, but the words marriage certificate do not appear anywhere in the SAVE Act. In fact, it could have been written in that way since you're adding all these lists and requirements of people to do, but it actually does make it harder for almost 70 million American women to vote. And so that's where Morell got it from. She's talking about the original SAVE Act. And so that's why you're hearing that the SAVE Act would make it harder for women to vote because that version, it did. So Morell's not wrong. She's just thinking of the wrong bill. But that version went to the Senate and it died and never even got a vote over there. Instead, Chip Roy, author of the original SAVE Act, he then birthed the SAVE Act's ugly brother, the SAVE America Act. And just a quick note on Chip Roy. Chip Roy is an interesting one for me. The fact that he's the author of both of these bills. I'm confused by it because he really did seem to care about democracy on January 6, 2021, when he pissed off Daddy Trump by defending the Constitution. Now, many of my colleagues were poised this afternoon to vote to insert Congress into the constitutionally prescribed decision making of the states by rejecting the sole official electors sent to us by each of the states of the Union. I hope they will reconsider. I can tell you that I was not going to and I will not be voting to reject the electors. And that vote may well sign my political death warrant. But so be it. I swore and oath uphold the Constitution of the United States and I will not bend its words into contortions for personal political expediency. And yet here's Chip Roy introducing the SAVE and SAVE America Act. And I do have to wonder if both of these bills are a way of Chip Roy trying to become one of Daddy's favorite boys again. But anyway, the SAVE America Act, just like the SAVE Act, requires proof of citizenship to vote, but it also adds a few more documents to the accepted proof list. So the proof is exactly the same as the SAVE Act. You can use a passport, you can use a real ID, but only if you're in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington, you can use your military ID card with your military record same shot. But you can also use a US hospital record of birth. You could also pair these items with name change documentation. So that's where the marriage certificate would come into play. And the SAVE America Act would exempt members of the military who are serving overseas from having to provide proof of citizenship in person in order to register to vote. And for those without proof, once again, the state would have only 30 days to establish a process that allows applicants to quote, submit other such evidence, unquote. And again, the election official must sign a pinky promise affidavit, and the election official can be prosecuted as a criminal if they register one of us without enough proof of citizenship. And Chip Roy seemed to think that these tweaks were enough. With respect to the other claims, there have been claims about the implications for married women. The fact is that the SAVE America Act does not, as is alleged, disenfranchise voters, but rather it provides a very specific process for anyone who changes his or her name to register to vote, including by signing an affidavit. Now, we believe the original form of the SAVE Act would have provided ample ability for states to have taken care of it, but we went ahead and added additional provision to ensure that the affidavit process was there. For again, a small fraction of the population for whom it might impact, we wanted to ensure that there was no chance of issue. Issued questions were raised about our uniform personnel, our men and women, who served this country overseas. And we believe that our previous version would have made it fine for them to be able to do what they needed to do to register to vote and to vote, but we made a clarification to ensure that UaKaava governs what happens with our men and women in uniform. So we have made every attempt to work to ensure that this bill is doing exactly what it's intended to do, which is ensure that only citizens vote and that we present voter ID at the polls. So I'm going to say that what he said is true in regards to married women. I think that it is true that the SAVE America Act solves the problem from the SAVE Act for married women and for anyone else who changes their name, because you would be able to show a marriage certificate or some other kind of name change proof along with a birth certificate in order to register to vote. But the SAVE America Act changed nothing about the physical hurdles erected for all of us in the registration process. So like in the mostly red states that don't allow same-day voter registration, we would still have to go in person to show election officials proof of citizenship before the voter registration deadline. They also added another hurdle, which is that the SAVE America Act added that you will not be allowed to vote on election day without presenting a photo ID. And for those who vote by mail with your ballot, you would have to include a copy of your photo ID. Now, for those of us who don't have a printer, which is a lot of us, you would be allowed to make the photocopy for free at state and local government buildings, so like at the courts or libraries or police stations. But there's no requirement or funding for the IDs themselves. The ID itself does not have to be free, which means that this is a form of a poll tax, because if you have to pay for a thing in order to vote, in this case, you have to pay for an ID, that means there is a fee, there is a financial barrier between you and your vote, that's a poll tax, and that's unconstitutional. Although I will say that they did have a provision in here for people who don't have a photo ID, which I think is how they're going to try and get around the unconstitutionality of the poll tax, because if you don't have a photo ID, which a lot of people in the United States who don't drive and who don't travel internationally, there's actually a lot of people who don't have a photo ID. And so if that is you, you would have to provide the last four digits of your social security number and an affidavit from the state saying that you weren't able to get a copy of your photo ID, which is yet another pain in the ass with no established process for taking care of, like how do you get that affidavit from the state? I would have no idea where to start. And on top of those new hurdles, this also gets the federal government involved in our elections. So the Save America Act added that each state would be required to submit a complete list of all their eligible voters to the Department of Homeland Security. So that would no longer be an option for the states like it was in the Save Act if the states wanted the help from the feds. DHS would be a required part of every state's election system, receiving information about every single one of us who wants to vote, including which party we're a part of. And after being given our information, the Department of Homeland Security would have to run our names through their systematic alien verification for entitlement system, the Save system. But after that, there's no restriction on what else can be done by the Department of Homeland Security with all of the voter role information. And so I actually think that by putting up more hurdles, not just with registration, but with voting itself, and by handing our information over the Department of Homeland Security, the Save America Act actually might be worse than the Save Act. And the Republicans in the House f**king loved it. Because the Save America Act passed on February 11, 2026 by a vote of 218 to 213. Every single Republican voted yes. Along with one Democrat, the guy who I keep saying is the worst Democrat in the House, Henry Collar of Deep South, Texas. This is the guy, by the way, who was corrupt and got pardoned by Trump because Trump thought he might flip and become a Republican because he was grateful. But like, does he need to be a Republican when he votes with Republicans on bills like this? Like this guy sucks. He just sucks. And while we're on the subject of things that suck, let's just take a second and talk about the process of how the Save America Act passed the House. Here's Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. He's been on the Rules Committee for at least as long as I've been doing this show. He knows how the process is supposed to work. And he was really mad about what happened with the Save America Act. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is a prime example of how awful the process has been under this Republic majority. The Save America Act was introduced by the gentleman from Texas just 12 days ago. And it included significant changes from its original version, the Save Act. And after the Save America Act initial introduction, the Rules Committee posted a complete rewrite of it on last Friday. And even after two sweeping rounds of edits, Republicans were not done changing their half-baked bill. Yesterday they posted a managers amendment, which makes more use changes, including changing when the bill would take effect and which voter IDs would be acceptable. Now, we've seen three totally different versions of this bill in a dozen days. And it's important to say that all of these changes were background, the backroom deals. No hearings, no markups, no regular order. The chairman of the House Administration Committee didn't even feign a desire to include rank and file members in the process. And by the way, if you were to look up the Save America Act right now, it's kind of hard to find the proper one because of the procedural tricks used to pass it through the House of Representatives. So like if you look at congress.gov and you look at the top 10 most searched for bills, you will see HR 7296 labeled the Save America Act. But that's not the version that passed the House look closer. You'll see that that version was introduced, but it never moved. And yet this is what most people in the United States who are trying to educate themselves are looking at. They're not looking at the actual Save America Act. This is happening because the House Republicans used a procedural trick to pass the Save America Act. So basically in order to speed up the process and get around some of the rules, the House Republicans took a bill that had passed the Senate, deleted the text and then replaced that text with the Save America Act. And so if you want to see the actual Save America Act, which passed the House, the bill number is S as in Senate 1383. And the title of the bill is the Veterans Accessibility Advisory Committee Act of 2025. Which is important to know if you're trying to hold your member of the House accountable and check their vote. They are not making it easy for us by pulling this tricky shot. But regardless of the shady way they did it, the Save America did pass the House and it moved into the Senate, where it has effectively stalled as much as the Senate Republicans are trying to make it look like it hasn't. Because remember, the Senate has weird rules and that includes the filibuster. And a filibuster in practice essentially means that one senator can hold up a bill and then 60 votes are needed to move it forward. And so a bill that is filibustered needs 60 votes to even get to the voting stage of the process. And right now, because there's a filibuster on the Save America Act, it can't do that. And that's because there are Republicans who don't love the bill, like Senator Tom Tillis, who are refusing to pull any tricky tricks to get it around the filibuster. And there's at least one Republican senator who has been very vocal that she will not support the Save America Act on its own merits. Here's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska speaking on the Senate floor on March 19th. As the bill is drafted right now, these provisions are effective upon passage of the bill. And so that means that Alaska and every other state is going to have to comply with a new set of laws that in my state situation that contradict our state laws. And we are in the midst of an election cycle. We are less than eight months away now from our general election. In addition to immediate implementation of the provisions under this bill, there's no support that comes to the state when I say support. There's no federal resources that come and say, all right, you need to figure out how you can get more photo identification, mobile units out to remote areas where it is hard to do. You need resources. You need people in order to absorb this, the numbers that you will see when people come to your division of elections or your public assistance office with original documents. You need more folks. Well, here's the money. Well, we're not helping with that. So the states would be forced to bear the entire cost of implementation right away, just right away. So this is a tall order. And again, you're trying to stand all of this up while we are in the midst of an active election year. And certainly in my state, we would be redirecting, if we had to comply with a federal law, we would redirect funds from elsewhere. But this is just, okay, it's a logistical challenge. Is it insurmountable? Maybe not. Is it going to be really hard to do in certain places? I think that's fair to say. So maybe I'm starting with the easiest point here, which is the implementation on the timeline that this bill outlines is pretty near impossible in a state like Alaska right now, given the lack of infrastructure that we currently have. Senator Murkowski also had concerns about the people in Alaska and in all our districts not being able to register because of the in-person requirements for showing proof of citizenship. And here was her conclusion about all of those hurdles that were put up between us and registration. But this is hard. This is hard. And so I fear that they won't register because financially they won't be able to register. And if they're not able to register, they can't vote. And while disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the Save America Act, and I don't think that it is, I think that we will see that. In fact, I fully expect it to be an outcome of this. The only thing where she and I disagree is the intent, because I do think that disenfranchisement is the intent. But she's talking to her own party and about her own party, so I will forgive her assuming some good faith. I do not assume the same thing. And so in the Senate, because President Donald Trump is demanding that this bill be passed, or at least he was before he launched an illegal, immoral, and strategically disastrous war on Iran. Before he got distracted by that cluster of his own making, Donald Trump was demanding that the Save America Act be passed by the Senate. Or else he'll never sign another thing into law again. And so the Senate has been trying to appease the big baby by pretending to work on the Save America Act for weeks. So they've been debating it, that's what the Lisa Murkowski clip was from, and they've been adding all kinds of amendments. And Senator Lisa Murkowski is concerned about those amendments too. This version also goes further and sets a new default rule for federal elections of in-person voting. This contradicts Alaska's long allowed, no excuse absentee voting by mail. So the way the amendment is drafted, absentee ballots would be only allowed if the voter is a member of the Uniformed Services or stationed abroad or out of state, unable to vote in person due to illness, infirmity, hospitalization, or physical disability, is the primary caregiver of an individual who's medically incapacitated, or will be absent from the state due to verified travel. And now there's a fifth hardship category, but we understand that the drafters are pretty clear that this is meant to be construed narrowly. So the bill then goes on to prescribe very different specific chain of custody rules for a state's handling of absentee ballots on top of the other changes that Save America would mandate be implemented immediately. And that wasn't the only amendment. I'm also not happy to see some provisions tucked into the substitute that target transgender individuals simply because there's apparently an opening to do so. I don't know that that has anything to do with voting, but these provisions add to the opposition that I have. And so the Save America Act, just like the Save Act, is in trouble in the Senate. And the sub-nate Republicans can waste their time, waste our time, all they want. But the reality is that the Save America Act is probably as dead as the Save Act, at least on its own. Because there's always Dingleberry potential, they could stick it onto some other must sign piece of legislation. But the closer we get to the midterm election, and we're getting closer every day, the implementation concerns only grow louder. Like at the time of this recording, we've been voting in the primaries for this midterm for two months already. It really is totally unreasonable and increasingly unrealistic to think that a proof of citizenship requirement is even possible for the 2026 election. But that isn't stopping President Trump from continuing to try. Because he has to know that if Democrats get any power in Congress in the 2026 election, that means that starting in 2027, his era of being completely free to do whatever he wants thanks to a Congress that is constantly on vacation and refusing to do any oversight, those days would be done. In fact, I think a lot of us are counting on it. And so with the Save America Act stalled in the Senate, President Trump tried another executive order at the end of March of 2026. And once again, he's trying to get the Secretary of Homeland Security to create a master list of eligible voters in each state that can be used to kick people off of state voter rolls. The list from the Department of Homeland Security, if Trump had his way, wouldn't have to be given to the states until 60 days before the election, ensuring that the voter roll purges would be right around the registration deadlines, making it hard too impossible for us to find out that we've been deleted from the voter registration roll and to re-register in time to vote. And again, instead of prosecuting just the individuals who vote illegally, his executive order would make it crystal clear that election officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters would be federally prosecuted as criminals. They also want to prosecute people who print or ship ballots to ineligible voters. Specifically, President Trump wants states to give the United States Postal Service a list of eligible voters two months before the election. And the Post Office would not be allowed to deliver a ballot to a person if they don't show up on the list, which puts a lot of responsibility not only on our election officials, but also our postal workers and gives them, since they would be criminally liable for mistakes, it gives them strong incentives to withhold ballots from us in order to protect themselves. And just like with the first executive order, lawsuits are happening already. I think this is going to get struck down really, really fast, and so I'm not all that worried about it. But the point is the attempt. And what I want you to be aware of are the similarities between these attempts. All of them give the federal government a role in the maintenance of voter rolls in the states. All of them punish middlemen between us in our ballots harshly, giving the middlemen good reason to be afraid to register people and to give us ballots. And all of them are making voting harder. That's the main one. The Republicans are trying their damnedest to make voting harder effective immediately. And I'll be blunt about the conclusion that I think is more than fair to draw. The Republicans in Congress and in the White House are trying to cheat in this upcoming election. And I think they're definitely going to try and cheat in 2028. These particular attempts haven't worked yet, but we still have six months before the midterms. And so while Meryl Streep got the details wrong, I can't really blame her for that because this is obviously confusing. But she's right to raise awareness about the main issue. The Republicans are trying to make it harder for us to vote, and they seem willing to throw all sorts of shhh-y legal maneuvers at the wall to see what sticks. And so here's my advice. Number one, register to vote now. Even if you just voted, even if you've been registered in the same place for years, register again. Because I'm almost certain that they are going to kick people off of the voter registration rolls because that is what they have been doing for decades. And I think they're going to try it whether they can find a legal way to do it or not. And so do not let yourself be one of the people purged and then surprised to be immeasurable to vote on election day. And then two, do not send your ballot into the election officials using the mail. Walk your ballot in. I've been an election official personally in three different states, and I know that you don't have to wait in those long lines in order to turn in your ballot in person. But do not let any middleman stand between your ballot and the election officials, not in this election. And if you do ignore me and you send the ballot in using the mail, do not allow your ballot to be received after election day, no matter what your state law says. And so I hope that clears things up a bit and gives you a way to remain empowered despite what the Republicans are trying to do. And I hope more than anything that judging them based on their actions, I hope that the Republicans are punished at the ballot boxes in November, because my God, do they deserve it? So now I'd like to thank our executive producers who are people who have paid a cumulative $535 for every executive producer credit. It doesn't have to be all at once. You can definitely rack that up over time if you're producing the show via Patreon or if you're sending in Venmos, we keep track of all of them. And you can always check with Lauren at congressionaldish.com to see how far you've come. But I would like to thank Robert Tingstrom, who has been a producer of the show for a long time. And now he put a executive producer credit on congressional just 334 untrained and unwarranted. I love that there's another credit on that episode, because I think it is so important. And Robert said, tell Jen, thank you for all of her hard work and Claire as well. They are an inspiration to pay attention and get informed. Well, we appreciate you saying that, and we really appreciate your support, Robert. I also really appreciate all your comments, because I love reading your comments, not just Roberts, but everybody's, but Robert is a heavy commenter over on Patreon. And so, yeah, it just makes me feel good when I hear from you guys, especially when you have nice things to say. So thank you, Robert. And thank you for moving that episode up the most valuable episodes list. Thank you also to Matt Dale, who put an executive producer credit on episode 323, Shut Down Bad, which I think is very relevant considering the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down. And I've got to say, with this particular shutdown, Donald Trump is somehow funding the employees at the Department of Homeland Security. So the ends there, the employees getting paid, I 100% support their paychecks should not be leveraged in any kind of political battle. The problem is Congress has the power of the purse. It's Congress that does the appropriations. And so I don't understand how Donald Trump is able to fund an agency that is unfunded by Congress. But I think because the TSA lines are better, and because we care about the workers, we're just kind of not fighting this particular Trump unprecedented illegality. But this isn't good. This is yet another transfer of power from Congress to the executive branch that no one seems to be fighting because Congress is currently on vacation. So they're certainly not fighting the loss of that power. And that is their most essential power, the power of the purse. And so while I'm glad the paychecks are being cut, I literally don't know from where they are being cut. It's very shady, very concerning, even though, again, I do support the ends. How could you not? So yeah, just one other unprecedented thing during the second Trump administration, I am so tired of unprecedented things. And finally, I would like to thank Mike Coverdale. He is one of our most active executive producers, and he has put yet another credit on an episode, this one episode 312 threatening Panama's canal. And he left a note, he said, thank you for another great episode. I'd like to have an executive producer credit on 312 threatening Panama's canal. Because I'm thinking attention will go back there as Trump fails to control the Strait of Hermuse. Sonums should be placed after Nicaragua on your list of targets. As you read off all of the reporting requirements for pharmacy benefit managers, that are to go in effect into 2029, I was reminded of the stock act and all of the requirements included that would help the public see how Congress was investing. How easy they found it to gut that in under a year. What chance does the pharmacy benefit manager rules have of ever going into effect? So this is Jen commenting now, I actually am more optimistic about the pharmacy benefit managers, because first of all, it's not self serving. The stock act was legislating what members of Congress themselves could and could not do. And it was exposing members of Congress for their bad behavior. And so they gutted that. But pharmacy benefit managers in what I've seen, not only in the episode that I produced about this, but I've also listened to hearing since then. They are hated by both sides of the aisle. And they're blamed by the health insurance industry and by the hospitals and the doctors, like the people that are paying essentially Congress, you know, the lobbyists and the campaign contributors, we know how they're in the pocket of insurance. And so I think they're an easier boogeyman to go after than the insurance industry. And so I just think that because members of Congress themselves are not the target, and because I've seen bipartisan trashing of PBMs going back years, I actually don't think that anyone is really all that incentivized, at least not a majority in Congress, to slip any kind of dingleberry in that would repeal that. Because again, that was a dingleberry itself onto government funding. And so why dingleberry something into law just to undingleberry it later? Like, I don't see why they would do that. So I'm a little bit more optimistic about the PBM stuff going into effect. But I've been wrong before Congress consistently disappoints me. So I will keep an eye out for it, but I have my fingers crossed. But back to Mike's note, he said, ironically, just before reporting on the PBM dingleberry, you expose the annual don't touch the 501c4 legislation that protects dark money funnels that most in office claim to abhor. But then Trump just took bulldozers to the east wing. How much more fitting an example of what he is doing to our country? Thanks again for your tenacity, Mike. Well, thank you for supporting me. I'm sure you guys can hear my frustration in absolutely everything in every single episode that I produce lately. I'm horrified by what's going on in our country. But one of the things that does give me hope is the support for the show and the fact that you want me to keep doing this and that we haven't given up, you haven't given up. So thank you for voting with your wallet to keep this going. And thank you for reaching out to me and your comments and your support lets me know that I'm not alone and how I am working and how I am feeling. None of us are alone. We're in this together. And at least we have that and that's not nothing. So yeah. And as for Panama, I do think because of the money, my target list remains the same. I do think that it's Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, but I would put Panama after that. As I said in the Panama Canal episode, there was kind of a workaround there. So I don't think that's us high on the list anymore, but we are in the Donald Trump year. So it's impossible to predict what's going to happen. And so thank you for bringing that back up because Panama was very much on the target list in the beginning of the second reign of Donald Trump. And we shouldn't completely lose sight of that. So all right, I would like to thank Claire, who is my amazing assistant. I would like to thank Mike at Pro Podcast Solutions. He is my editor. And if you are looking for editors, Pro Podcast Solutions has lots of people that they can help you. They were my first outsource and they were the best decision I ever made. Thank you to marketpodcast branding.co. He does our web design and security. Thank you to my sister Lauren, who does our book keeping and executive producer services. Thank you to dad and especially Robin for getting my taxes done. I love you guys so much. I need you to live forever because I would have no idea what to do with my taxes. And then thank you as always to Brian Keras. He is our guardian angel. We love you and we miss you. All right, next episode is going to be the summary of March. Probably won't be long because it didn't do much. And then I'm going to go on vacation. I'm going to go to Florida and play some volleyball for a week and hopefully start to feel a bit better mentally. I'm recording this just so you know the day after that Trump threatened to annihilate the Iranian civilization. And then there was a ceasefire last night. And as I am recording this, I am getting messages on my phone that the ceasefire is already over. It lasted less than a day. So I'm just horrified by the Trump chaos. I am horrified by the number of people that are dying with the weapons that are being paid for with my money. None of it makes sense. None of it is okay. I want it all to stop and I'm feeling very angry and powerless. And so if you heard a lot of venom towards Donald Trump and the Republicans in my voice today, it's because my anger runneth over. I'm out of my mind with rage. So this was me controlling myself. I did the best I could. All right, that's all I got. Thanks for listening and I will talk to you soon. Bye. We don't have a domestic spying program. As if a lie is all right, if the end will justify the means. Now we are so damn tired of being lied to. The polar ice caps aren't going away. We don't think we can deny it anymore. You can stick to your story if you think it lies. But we're not keeping quiet anymore. We are so damn tired of being lied to. Government jobs consume the profits of the private sector. We don't think we can deny it anymore. You can stick to your story if you think it flies. But we're not keeping quiet anymore. Now we're not keeping quiet. These bills represent common sense bipartisan solutions that actually solve problems.