Published June 19, 2026
The president is quintupling down on his demands that the Senate pass the SAVE America Act. Voter ID has supermajority support but the Senate just won’t pass it. Senator Mike Lee has taken to delaying the Road to Housing Act’s passage, asking on X to 30k likes, “Raise your hand if you’d rather have the Senate debate the SAVE America Act than the 21st Century Road to Housing.” Lee has accordingly continued his quest to pass the bill at a simple-majority threshold at the same time the president is explicitly saying that, if Republicans don’t abolish the filibuster for this, they will be up the creek without a paddle.
In other words, the base demands this bill and the people at large support it, but the Senate just won’t act. This is why the president and his GOP base are increasingly frustrated with the Senate for blocking what they see as the popular will. They don’t want excuses about the pointless traditions and norms that get in the way of necessary policy.
The Senate, of course, sees things differently. One senior Republican senator has summed up the traditional Senate perspective well, observing, “Power is not found in mere majorities, but in carefully balanced power.” He explained that the Senate is “where consensus is forged, as senators reach compromise across regional, cultural, and partisan lines” opposed to the House which is “the body most reflective of current majority views.”
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Michael A. Fragoso is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture Program, where he writes and speaks on issues relating to the law, the federal judiciary, and Congress. An attorney in private practice, he served in all three branches of the federal government, including most recently as chief counsel to the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy: Per Curiam, and elsewhere.
