Sen Mike Lee defends SAVE Act, calls Schumer’s ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ cost ‘paranoid fantasy’

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Senate Democrats have panned the GOP’s push for voter ID laws as akin to segregationist legal guidelines from the Deep South, however the architect of the invoice within the Senate says their arguments are indifferent from actuality.

"It is paranoid fantasy," Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, instructed Fox Information Digital. "These are absurd arguments. They need to be ashamed to make them."

Lee was responding to feedback from Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has doubled down on his declare that the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act is "Jim Crow 2.0."

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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, referred to as the accusation that his voter ID laws was "Jim Crow 2.0" by Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., "paranoid fantasy." (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Pictures; Invoice Clark/CQ Roll Name, Inc. by way of Getty Pictures)

The invoice, which handed the Home final week and has been launched and championed by Lee within the Senate, would require photograph ID to vote in federal elections, proof of citizenship to register and would mandate that states hold voter rolls away from ineligible voters.

Schumer and his caucus plan to dam the invoice, arguing that it's a software of voter suppression that may disproportionately hurt poorer People and minority teams.

However Lee argued that offering identification or proof of citizenship is routine in on a regular basis life — whether or not present process a background examine to purchase a firearm or filling out tax varieties when beginning a brand new job.

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Senate Majority Chief John Thune, R-S.D., instructed Fox Information Digital that the SAVE America Act, voter ID laws backed by President Donald Trump, would get a vote within the Senate. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Pictures)

"By their logic, it is Jim Crow to require any person to determine citizenship earlier than taking a job with a brand new employer, and that is insane," Lee mentioned.

"And so then they argue right here, properly, voting is so elementary, and we've constitutional protections defending our proper to vote," he continued. "Effectively, we have got constitutional protections defending our proper to bear arms, and but that does not trigger us to dispense with proving who you might be and your eligibility to purchase a gun. This has simply been insane."

With out Democratic help, nonetheless, the pathway to sending the laws to President Donald Trump’s desk is difficult.

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President Donald Trump listens throughout a Cupboard assembly on the White Home, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP Photograph)

Senate Majority Chief John Thune, R-S.D., has vowed to convey the SAVE America Act to the ground, and Republicans have the votes to maneuver it by its first key procedural hurdle. From there, Democrats can block it with the 60-vote filibuster, which Lee typically refers to because the "zombie" filibuster.

Eliminating the filibuster is out of the query for a number of of Lee’s colleagues, however Republicans are warming to reinstating a speaking, or standing, filibuster, which might require Senate Democrats to make their case towards the invoice on the ground over hours of debate.

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Trump has already recommended he would situation an executive order if the laws fails, which Lee declined to take a position on with out first figuring out what precisely can be executed.

However he famous that it was all of the extra cause to go the SAVE America Act, given the ever-swinging political pendulum in Washington, D.C.

"It is nonetheless actually critically necessary that we go this regulation, as a result of let's assume that he issued such an order, and that it does most or all of what we would have liked to do right here, that offers us safety for the second, to no matter diploma he is in a position to try this by an govt motion," Lee mentioned. "However we'd like one thing that may last more than he is in workplace."