The ongoing debate among Republicans over how to advance the SAVE America Act is about more than the election overhaul bill. It is also a debate over how the Senate should make decisions more generally. Senators Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., want Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to bring the election overhaul bill to the floor and force Democrats to hold the floor and talk to stop it from passing. Their strategy relies on the Senate’s existing rules to structure the debate and eventually reach an up-or-down vote on final passage without invoking cloture on the bill.
Thune and senators such as John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., reject that approach as unworkable. They argue that debating the SAVE America Act on the floor serves no purpose because Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture, and that reality makes the alternative approach impractical.
Lee and Scott want to use Senate rules other than the cloture rule to overcome Democrats’ obstruction. In contrast, Thune views the Senate’s present reliance on cloture as the only way to overcome obstruction. This distinction frames the central divide in the dispute.
