www.silverguide.site –

A reminder that the restrictive voting bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to oppose it, leaving it short of the votes needed to overcome the filibuster.

Yesterday, Mike Johnson unveiled an idea to try to get around that. He proposed to advance a grant program tied to the bill in a GOP reconciliation package, so that the majority party could bypass the filibuster. The House speaker said he had told Donald Trump that this could be the only path forward for the legislation.

But GOP hardliners are not happy. They argue that Johnson’s plan amounts an incentive program and is therefore insufficient as it would enact only a watered-down version of the Save America Act, creating a fund to encourage states to tap into in order to adopt provisions of the bill rather than enacting the full legislation.

The aforementioned Anna Paulina Luna, the Florida Republican leading the rebellion, wrote on X after Johnson’s press conference:

The save America act cannot be placed in reconciliation and I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. Neither should you.

And representative Chip Roy of Texas, who is the policy chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a major proponent of the bill, told The Hill he thinks “grant programs are what they are. They’re incentives.”

States who want to do it would take the incentive. States who don’t wouldn’t necessarily. Maybe it’s pressure. I’m not saying I’m opposed to putting something like that on if there is a moving vehicle that’s otherwise moving in order to get some elements of the election integrity done, but let’s not kid ourselves that it would be full Save. It wouldn’t be.

He added that “every effort should be made to attach the Save America Act to moving vehicles, for example, the housing bill.”

And as if Johnson’s pitch today wasn’t tricky enough, Trump was asked by reporters in the Oval Office yesterday if he would be open to a compromise of including provisions of the Save Act in a reconciliation bill. The president replied:

Not really, no, the Save Act should be … there’s no compromise, it’s voter ID, it’s proof of citizenship, and it’s also the mail-in ballots.

Updated

Per our last post, House speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with the president at 2pm ET to try to find a way through the gridlock after a rebellion from GOP hardliners effectively shut down the floor yesterday.

The group of Maga loyalists, led by representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is insisting that no other legislation can pass until the Senate clears the so-called Save America Act. She posted on X after the upper chamber abruptly went into recess last night:

It is 10pm and Thune just got unanimous consent (meaning not one senator objected) for the Senate to adjourn 19 days (July 13th) meaning the Senate is going home after tonight’s votes.

I will not be voting to re-open the floor until the Senate gets back to Washington. The Senate is literally running and not ONE senator objected to going on vacation before 4th of July.

[Senate majority leader] John Thune is running and hiding because he doesn’t want to get voter ID across the finish line.

If Donald Trump can’t help Johnson break the impasse, the House will also go on recess for the week, sources have told Politico.

Updated

Trump to meet House speaker amid showdown on Capitol Hill

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

A dramatic day is in store in Washington DC as Donald Trump heads for a crucial meeting with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, in an attempt to break a legislative gridlock as huge political fireworks have detonated on Capitol Hill far ahead of anything resembling a Fourth of July celebration.

The US Senate abruptly went on recess for two weeks yesterday after a stormy lunch which the US president, who had not visited for a long time, attended. It descended into a shouting match over the US-Israel war on Iran and tests of loyalty. This followed Trump suddenly scrapping the signing of a pivotal bipartisan housing bill hours earlier. Trump’s demands that the Senate change the rules to pass his highly-controversial voter ID bill has led to a gulf between the White House and the upper chamber.

Johnson will attempt to get a reluctant House moving on Trump’s agenda today as a sop. A difficult task.

Here’s what else is happening:

  • Maryland’s Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen is endorsing the progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary, a split with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, the Associated Press reports as an exclusive.

  • The US supreme court is expected to issue opinions at 10am ET and most of the big cases have not yet been ruled upon. We await immigration and finance-related opinions in particular.

  • Huge focus on the Hill where the House speaker, Mike Johnson, meets with Trump at 2pm, with both hoping the House will be persuaded to take a vote and end a rebellion from within the right wing of the Republican caucus over the Save Act to tighten up on who can vote in US elections.

  • Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana got into a shouting match with Trump at the Senate lunch on Wednesday after Trump admonished four senators, including him, for backing a resolution to rein in the war in the Middle East. Kennedy reportedly responded: “You have not told the American people what’s going on” with the war, adding afterwards to reporters: “It was supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months,” according to Politico.

Updated