The SAVE America Act is Jim Crow’s comeback

After the 1870 ratification of the 15th Amendment, barring states from depriving citizens the right to vote based on race, southern states began enacting Jim Crow measures, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, to keep African Americans from the polls.

In launching the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, President Trump has subtly channeled these techniques, long since outlawed, to delegitimize many eligible Black voters and, if that is not successful, pave the way to delegitimize the vote itself. 

Trump has bet much of his political capital on passage of the measure, which he deemed “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress.” 

The bill would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to register and show photo identification at the polls to vote. It also instructs states to hand over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, raising privacy and surveillance concerns. In addition, the measure would all but eliminate mail-in voter registration and voting, long Trump’s bete noire. 

After narrowly passing the House, the measure is now being debated in the Senate. If enacted, this bill will ride roughshod over the voting rights of millions of Americans.

The proposed legislation is totally unnecessary. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. The burden of the law would deter millions of eligible Black voters from voting, as well as new voters and women who typically do not have appropriate documentation. 

Trump told lawmakers that the bill would “guarantee the midterms” for the Republican Party. That should be the first sign that its purpose is not seriously aimed to “Save America,” but to save the MAGA movement. He claimed that Democrats were “doing everything possible” to fight it “because they know if we get this, they probably won’t win an election for 50 years.” 

Trump vowed last week never to endorse anyone who voted against the bill.  And to add some MAGA salt to the stew, he has demanded Congress pass an expanded version of the legislation that would also bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and restrict gender-transition care for children.  

But this bill’s effects could backfire on Republicans, diluting their base even more than that of the Democrats. The Washington Post analyzed congressional districts where at least 5 percent of residents would need to re-register. Of those, more Republican-held districts are currently in play than Democrat-held districts.

Requiring proof of citizenship to register tends to hurt Republicans. In January, Michael Fragoso, former chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), warned Republicans that adding restrictions to voter registration would not necessarily favor their party. Those voters, Fragoso argued, have tended to sit out off-year and special elections, and would likely not go to the extra step of confirming their citizenship to go to the polls in a general. About 9 percent of citizens of voting age do not have paper proof of citizenship, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the University of Maryland.

The proposed legislation also affects women. As many as 69 million married women in the U.S. do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name, according to the Center for American Progress.

Trump’s assumption is partly rooted in his obsessive belief that widespread voter fraud, particularly by “millions” of noncitizens, cost him the 2020 election. But courts have almost uniformly rejected dozens of legal challenges by Trump alleging systemic election fraud.

It would take 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, allowing Senate Democrats to block the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) brought the bill to the floor for debate last week but acknowledged it does not have the votes to pass.

Some Republicans had pressed Thune to evade the filibuster by forcing Democrats to hold the Senate floor through marathon speeches to block the bill, gambling that Republicans could outlast them. But Thune has said he does not believe such a strategy could succeed. It’s a fool’s errand to mollify Trump. 

The Senate voted 51-48 to start debate on the legislation, a vote requiring only a majority. One Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), voted with Democrats against starting debate. “If you don’t think that you can win on it, why are you going into this debate in the first place?” Murkowski said. Good question. 

“The votes aren’t there to do a talking filibuster,” Thune told reporters. “So, what we are doing is we are having a fulsome debate on the floor of the United States Senate.” 

Trump has made the bill a top priority, declaring on Truth Social that, “Only sick, demented, or deranged people in the House or Senate,” would vote against it. He told reporters in the Oval Office that he had spoken to Thune and thought the senator was trying to get the bill over the finish line.

“I think it’ll be a very, very bad thing for the country if they don’t,” Trump said. He said the same thing about his emergency tariffs before the Supreme Court shot them down. 

Having squandered much of his political capital on Iran, Trump doesn’t have much left. 

James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a published legal analyst.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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