Vice President JD Vance says the Trump administration has explored an extraordinary Senate maneuver that could help advance the SAVE America Act, but a small group of Republican senators remains an obstacle.
Vance revealed that his constitutional role as president of the Senate could potentially put him at the center of the fight over President Donald Trump’s election laws.
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Speaking Thursday on Newsmax’s “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE,” Vance said the administration has examined whether he could personally take control of the Senate chair and overrule the parliamentarian.
“So, we’ve actually looked into this. As the president of the Senate under the U.S. Constitution, there are things that we can do,” Vance said.
“We can take over the Senate chair. I can occupy the chair. We can overrule the parliamentarian. Those things are very possible,” he continued.
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The problem, according to Vance, would then become securing enough Republican votes to sustain his ruling.
Vance said the obstacle would not necessarily be the 60 votes ordinarily needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, but whether Republicans could muster sufficient support for the procedural maneuver.
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“If, for example, I took over the Senate chair, and I overruled the parliamentarian, we would need to sustain 50 senators plus me,” Vance explained.
He said Trump, administration officials and Republican lawmakers have been discussing whether enough senators could ultimately be persuaded to support such a move.
Vance blamed what he described as “a few holdouts” who remain committed to traditional Senate procedures.
“The problem is not the majority of GOP senators,” Vance said.
“It’s that you’ve got a few holdouts who just don’t want to do that because they’re so committed to these archaic rules.”
The House has already passed the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and photo identification to cast a ballot.
The legislation would also impose new requirements on absentee voting and require states to regularly maintain voter rolls to identify and remove noncitizens.
An effort to advance the legislation through budget reconciliation encountered a major roadblock in June when Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined that it did not comply with the Byrd Rule.
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The rule governs what provisions can be included in reconciliation legislation, which can advance through the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes generally required to overcome a filibuster.
Trump has subsequently called for eliminating the filibuster and criticized Senate Majority Leader John Thune over the impasse.
Vance argued that Republicans who insist on preserving traditional Senate procedures are making a strategic mistake because he believes Democrats will eliminate those same protections whenever they next regain control of the chamber.
“You still have some senators who are so committed to these ridiculous parliamentary rules, even though they know the Democrats aren’t,” Vance said.
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He described those Republicans as effectively “unilaterally disarming” while assuming Democrats would reciprocate by preserving the filibuster when they regain power.
Vance pointed to former Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who resisted Democratic efforts to change filibuster rules during the Biden administration.
He argued their experiences demonstrated the political pressure senators can face when opposing their party’s leadership on major procedural questions.
He also argued that Democrats would eventually eliminate the filibuster to pursue priorities including statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., changes to the Supreme Court and their own election legislation.
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For now, however, Vance acknowledged Republicans do not appear to have secured the votes necessary to execute the maneuver the administration has explored.
That leaves Trump and Vance attempting to persuade the remaining Republican holdouts as the White House searches for a path to get the SAVE America Act through the Senate, Newsmax reported.
“We need to end the filibuster to save American elections,” Vance said. “It’s the smart and also the patriotic thing to do.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
