John ‘Failure Is Not An Option’ Thune Just Failed Election Integrity

Sure, the do-nothing Republican Senate leadership just put a bullet in the back of the head of election-integrity reform, but you’ll be glad to know they gave it the old college try. They had a “spirited debate.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune pulled the curtain down on the failure theater of “marathon debate” on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. The extremely popular cornerstones of the package would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in U.S. elections and photo ID to cast a ballot. 

Let’s face it, the debate show was the plan all along. And the South Dakota Republican was the star of the “deliberative” farce. 

“We called it up on the floor, March, I think, 17th. We were on it for several weeks and, uh, had a very spirited debate,” Thune said. “In fact, uh, I actually, I think, with the exception of maybe a couple of Republican senators, I made more speeches on the floor in support of the SAVE Act than almost any other senator.”

As Thune noted, the Senate took a vote on one of the key components of the SAVE America Act: requiring photo identification to vote. The upper house took another vote on the tack-on provision in the bill that would ban males from girls’ sports. 

To borrow a line from my mid-1980s self, Well, no duh? Of course the Democrats all voted against the provisions. A) They’re insane. B) They want as little integrity in our elections as humanly possible. Election integrity costs them elections. 

But Thune and crew want very frustrated voters to know, Hey, we tried. Our hands are tied.

Thune says, “We don’t have the votes to get rid of the filibuster.” That’s probably true. Too many Senate Republicans live under the delusion that when Democrats take back the Senate they won’t nuke the filibuster to slam through all kinds of Marxist legislation, including their election bill that would truly federalize election administration and effectively do away with voter ID laws now on the books in 36 states. Spoiler Alert, John: They will. 

‘Failure Is Not an Option’

As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman reported, dropping the bomb on the filibuster isn’t the only way to passage. The talking filibuster, forcing Democrats to hold the floor through actual continuous debate until they run out of opportunities to speak, would drop the 60-vote cloture threshold to a 51-vote simple majority. The Senate would just have to do something unheard of in modern American politics: work.  

Thune insists leadership is “continuing to look for opportunities to advance that legislation.” Leadership clearly is not. 

“Obviously it’s something that I support, I think we all support,” the majority leader said. That’s not so obvious. If it were, they would do everything in their power to pass the election-integrity package. What they have done is far from everything in their power. 

Thune is right about one thing. “We think it’s something that the American people are broadly supportive of as well.” 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Yes, there is no doubt that the American people support voter verification in elections. The vast majority, despite the fecklessness of the Republican-controlled Senate and the psyops campaign by the Democrat Party and their public-relations agents in the accomplice media, do not want noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. 

When it came to passing the massive package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, Thune said over and over again that “failure is not an option.” It clearly wasn’t. The Republican Senate put everything on the line to pass the tax policy legislation. Good for them, but that package was considerably less popular than the SAVE America Act, and nowhere near as fundamentally important as election integrity. 

Perhaps it’s a priority problem. It definitely is a failure of leadership problem. 

John Thune may be safely ensconced in his red state Senate seat. But he doesn’t have to be the Senate’s majority leader. 

The show appears to be closing on the SAVE America Act. The failure to pass this existential legislation isn’t on election integrity-denying Democrats. It’s on the guy who thinks “spirited debate” is a suitable replacement for necessary action. 

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Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.