Trump Pushes SAVE America Act as Senate Impasse Persists and Judge Blocks Proof of Citizenship

President Donald Trump’s push to overhaul federal election laws is running into a Senate impasse over the SAVE America Act, which the House has already passed but remains stalled because Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

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20 Minutes

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, urged the Senate to move the legislation forward, saying, "The time for excuses is over. The time for action is now," while Trump personally lobbied Senate Republicans during a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill.

20 Minutes

The legislative fight is unfolding as a federal judge permanently blocked key portions of Trump’s executive order on election administration, including a provision requiring documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration.

In a separate Senate hearing, Postmaster General David Steiner testified that under a proposed Trump administration rule, the U.S. Postal Service could refuse to transport mail ballots from states that decline to provide certain voter data requested by the federal government, and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., criticized the proposal as giving the Postal Service "unprecedented authority over American elections."

A federal judge on Thursday blocked key pillars of President Donald Trump’s efforts to overhaul the 2026 elections, declaring unconstitutional his attempts to create centralized lists of adult citizens and giving the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented authority over who can vote by mail.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s 37-page ruling concluded that the president did not have the constitutional authority to regulate state elections as he tried to do in a March executive order, and Talwani wrote, "No law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS."

ABC News

Talwani issued an injunction preventing the federal government from enforcing those provisions of the order against the 24 jurisdictions whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit, and the injunction applies only to this year’s elections.

In response, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold hailed the ruling as a major victory for voters, saying, "The Constitution is clear: States run elections, not Trump."

Trump’s election push has also spilled into domestic legislation, as President Donald Trump abruptly canceled plans to sign a bipartisan housing bill and said he would only sign it after Congress approved the SAVE America Act.

“A nasty feud over President Donald Trump’s elections overhaul push has further crippled an already-dysfunctional Congress, leaving Republicans unable to move on critical elements of their agenda”

CNN

On Truth Social, Trump said, "Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT," while NBC News reported that Trump did not address the housing bill in comments to reporters after meeting with Republican senators for lunch on Capitol Hill.

The SAVE America Act has become the focal point of Trump’s second term, with the House having passed the measure while Republican leaders say they do not have the votes to pass it given Democrats’ strong opposition and an unwillingness among Republicans to get rid of the filibuster.

NPR described Trump’s strategy as using the SAVE America Act to force lawmakers toward an elections overhaul, noting that the bill "doesn't have the needed 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster" and that Trump has insisted he will not sign other legislation until the SAVE America Act is passed.