See below for video and a transcript (bolding added by me for emphasis of key points) from Sen. Mark Warner’s speech today on the US Senate floor about the so-called “SAVE America Act”:
“This is a bit of a distraction. And I think part of the reason it’s a distraction…is that at the end of the day, this President has frankly refused to acknowledge that the American people’s will in 2020 was not to rehire him. He cannot accept legitimate outcomes of the 2020 election – despite officials from his own administration calling the 2020 election the most secure in American history, the president continues to promote unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. And that’s after investigations from multiple courts and states attorneys generals, and election officials from both parties, strongly declaring there was no evidence to support allegations of substantial fraud. Simply put, the 2020 elections were certified, litigated, and affirmed.
And tomorrow, we’re going to hear from some of the intelligence officials, as my committee takes on the worldwide threat assessment, where unfortunately senior intelligence officials seem to be still focusing on relitigating the 2020 election rather than making us safe for 2026 and 2028. Because the truth is, after all these years, the president and his allies haven’t been able to find any evidence of legitimate voter fraud in past elections. As a matter of fact, there have been studies ad nauseam that showed millions and hundreds of millions of votes, the people that voted by mistake, that were undocumented, were in the single digits.
Now, they’re looking forward to the effort that’s on the floor right now, towards suppressing and wrongfully influencing future elections through this so-called ‘SAVE America Act.’ Again, I know the presiding officer, my friend from Wisconsin and others are going to say, I’m going to go over the top. So let me just try to use the president’s own words. The president’s own words, and historically, I know that the presiding officer comes from Utah, which has a proud history of states rights and local control, but the president’s own words, he wants Republicans to, quote unquote, take over election administration. Going as far as to say, Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. If there’s ever an Alice in Wonderland, up is down and down is up, that’s what’s happening. And, again — I don’t know if this comment led to her firing, but before he fired her, the president’s DHS secretary, Kristi Noem stated that her goal was to have the right people voting, so we can elect the right leaders. I mean, this comes — sounds like it comes out of some dystopian novel or 1930’s advocacy. I just — I don’t get it.
We all know that the strength of our democracy depends on voter participation and access to the ballot box. I’ve been doing this, I guess, long enough that I remember when things like Motor Voter and let’s make it easier to register were all bipartisan. And unfortunately, contrary to the name of the ‘SAVE America Act’, this legislation undermines the very foundations that it claims to protect. This bill would impose sweeping requirements that will make it extremely difficult for eligible voters to participate in our democracy. New voters, married women, servicemembers will face additional hurdles when registering to vote. That’s because under the ‘SAVE America Act’, Americans who have voted for years, who have gotten no question about their citizenship would have to go back and provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
And let me say at the front end, I support voter ID. We have voter ID in Virginia, I don’t think you should be able to vote without showing a legitimate ID. But under this bill, that so-called reasonable policy would put in place requirements that are so stringent that it would mean if you don’t have access to the right documentation, like a passport, you won’t be able to vote for the president of the United States. The truth is, according to the U.S. State Department, only half of all Americans possess a passport. That means if this bill passed, half of all American citizens would not be able to provide one of the primary acceptable forms of documentation that would be required to vote under the ‘SAVE Act’.
Additionally, under this bill, states will be barred from accepting online and mail-in voter registration unless the applicant also presents proof of citizenship in person. You know, so somebody who made the choice to change their name, who is now 85 years old and got to go back and find a birth certificate or get a passport, and then has to show up in person to get registered again? Even though she’s been voting for the last years, with no question about her citizenship? This effectively, frankly, guts online and mail-in voter registration processes that are available across many states, creating, I think, an unnecessary burden for all voters, particularly rural voters, senior citizens, and individuals with disabilities. And I see my friend from California here, it’s been states in the west, whether it is Oregon or California or Utah, that have used these tools to get more people involved. The fact is, these efforts don’t make our elections more secure, all this does is disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. You know, my view is, the goal of the ‘SAVE Act’ is more about cutting out voters and suppressing the vote than it is about ‘saving’ anything going forward.
Now, we’re having this debate and we’re going to probably go through lots of procedural antics that most folks won’t understand. I just wish that my Republican colleagues would come back to what I think we should be spending all our time on, if we’re going to spend all night, let’s focus on funding TSA, FEMA, CISA, the Coast Guard, and frankly, I believe we need to fund all the folks at Customs and Border Patrol who aren’t assigned to interior — immigration enforcement. So, last week, Senate Democrats attempted to say, hey, we got to — we got to debate about ICE, we got to debate about some of the CBP people who are doing domestic enforcement, if we can’t come to an agreement there, let’s fight over that, but let’s not make sure that we hold all of these other folks hostage. Unfortunately, my colleagues, Republican colleagues, blocked five separate bills offered by Senate Democrats that would fully fund all of the components of DHS. And particularly, I think about our hard-working TSA officers who, thank goodness, you know, they did get a paycheck on March 12, a partial paycheck, but now they’re going unpaid. And the amazing thing is, this is kind of a — a crisis that doesn’t need to be a crisis. The fact is, last July, my Republican colleagues voted to give Department of Homeland Security a slush fund worth nearly $170 billion. Of that funding, $75 billion was a blank check to ICE, providing the agency with a budget larger than most global militaries. Actually think the ICE budget is now bigger than the French military. I know it is bigger than the FBI’s budget. You know, the truth is, that $75 billion could actually fund ICE for the next seven years without any additional appropriations.
Now, I’m here today because myself and my Democratic colleagues are fighting to ensure that all the funding that is used for immigration enforcement will be no longer used in inappropriate ways. I think even most of my Republican colleagues have acknowledged that what happened in Minneapolis kind of went off the rails, that we’re seeing ICE agents literally abuse and brutalize Americans. And disrespect basic human dignity. You know, the unfortunate thing is, under this administration, ICE has been turned, frankly, into kind of a secret police that I believe has waged enormous violence against Americans. I know in my state, that — of the daily quota of people they have to pick up, 80% to 85% have never violated any other law than coming into the country, and most of them are going through an amnesty process that was set up. You know, we have seen the images of ICE ripping apart families, arresting moms as they drop off kids to day care. As a matter of fact, I know that I tried to go do some oversight, part of my job, took a lot of hoops to get through to even do that oversight. I believe, because of these actions, all our citizens are less safe.
So, we’ve got to do meaningful reforms to ICE. I don’t think they’re outrageous, like requiring body cameras, making sure that immigration enforcement officers show their face and identify themselves, and making sure that there’s proper training in upholding traditional use of force standards. These are the same requirements that my local law enforcement have to deal with every day, and for years. These aren’t new. These are common sense basic accountability measures that, I said, our state and local police abide by, because that’s how you keep communities safe.
Unfortunately, so far, the White House doesn’t seem to see it that way. They continue to drag their feet on negotiations. At the expense, frankly, of TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, Customs and Border Patrol, not folks doing interior enforcement, not getting paid. That doesn’t make any sense. As a matter of fact, we’ve even seen tools where in the last shutdown, the administration didn’t decide to cut off global entry or TSA precheck, because those are actually funded by separate fees, but suddenly, they decided to amp up the political pressure and close off those programs. Now, thank goodness, because of pressure from the public, the Trump administration reversed course and restarted the global entry program. But it should have never been suspended in the first place. You know, we’ve got to get these folks paid. Take yes for an answer. Take yes for an answer. As I pointed out earlier, $75 billion for ICE is not going to stop — we’ve got to get the reforms in place.
So, let’s keep the negotiations going. We ought to get them down. You know, I want to make sure that the TSA agents at Dulles, at National, at airports across my Commonwealth get their paychecks. As a state on the ocean, I want to make sure that Coast Guard gets their paycheck. We’ve been hit hard by Hurricane Helene. I want to make sure that FEMA gets funded. And CISA, one of the things that guards against — as we go into an election season, and I fear foreign interference, close to 50% of the personnel have been cut and eliminated.
So we can do better. We must do better. We can debate the ‘SAVE Act’, which I think again is about voter disenfranchise, not voter safety or integrity. But I do think while we debate this, why not go ahead and take yes for an answer and fund all of the other components of DHS so those folks who help protect us day in and day out get their paychecks? Let’s reopen these critical agencies. Let’s acknowledge that ICE has got a $75 billion slush fund that we could complain about as Democrats, but it is the law of the land. They’ve got the resources. In the meantime, why hold up the pay of these Americans who are doing so many things to keep us safe? I think those folks deserve better, I think we all deserve better.
I guess I’m a little old-fashioned. I actually think back to the subject at hand, you know, our elections are better if more people participate. I’m welcome to have more folks participate, citizens participate — citizens participate. Unfortunately this ‘SAVE Act’ cuts back on a whole lot of Americans that will be disenfranchised simply because they did the radical thing of changing their name when they got married or oh, my gosh, they were willing to join the military, or, oh, my gosh, they’re aged and they don’t want to spend $150 on their passport. Our country deserves better.”
