California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the SAVE America Act this week, warning the proposal could harm the country. Newsom has previously accused President Donald Trump of behaving like a dictator while also positioning himself for a potential presidential run.
The governor’s latest comments focused on the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Supporters of the measure argue the law would ensure that only American citizens participate in federal elections. Newsom said the proposal is about determining who can vote, which is actually true.
“What’s the SAVE Act? That’s not about ID, it’s about registration,” Newsom said. “It’s about who gets to vote, who doesn’t get to vote. They are not screwing around. We will lose this country.”
Republicans have argued the measure is necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting in federal elections. Democrats have largely opposed the proposal. Recent polling shows that large majorities of Republican, Democratic, and Independent voters support requiring an ID to vote.
The debate over voter eligibility and election security has become a major issue heading into the next federal election cycle.
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman broke with Democratic Party leadership in February, signaling his support for voter identification laws, saying he does not view showing ID to vote as unreasonable.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and almost all Senate Democrats have turned down the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This bill, which would protect the integrity of elections, passed the House earlier this week.
Schumer has called the bill “Jim Crow 2.0” because he thinks it would keep people from voting instead of making elections safer. But Fetterman, who has repeatedly disagreed with his party’s messages and positions, pushed back against Schumer’s framing of the bill.
“I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy. But that’s part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now. And I don’t call people names or imply that it’s something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow,” Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany.
The bill would require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, require proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote, and mandate that states remove non-citizens from voter rolls.
However, momentum is building among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, became the 50th member of the conference to back the legislation. But Senate Democrats have all but guaranteed its demise in the upper chamber, via the filibuster.
Fetterman would not say whether he supports the bill outright. However, he noted that “84% of Americans have no problem with presenting IDs to vote.”
“So it’s not like a radical idea,” Fetterman said. “It’s not something — and there already are many states that show basic IDs. So that’s where we are in the Senate.”
Even if Fetterman votes for the bill on the floor, it probably won’t pass unless there are bigger changes to the way things are done. Right now, there aren’t enough votes to get past the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster limit.
Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, are pressing for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—such as a birth certificate or passport—to register to vote in federal elections.
Trump has called on Senate Republicans to resurrect the “standing filibuster,” an older, more grueling procedure that forces senators to physically speak on the floor to block legislation, rather than rely on the modern “silent” version that stalls bills without debate.