Overview
- Party leaders pivoted the agenda to a DHS funding package and a short-term renewal of surveillance powers, leaving the voter ID and citizenship bill off the floor for now.
- An effort to bolt SAVE-style voter ID and citizenship checks onto a GOP immigration funding bill failed 48–50 during a late-night vote-a-rama after Republicans Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis opposed it.
- Republicans acknowledge they lack the votes to pass the bill and also lack 51 votes to weaken the filibuster, a reality confirmed by public comments from Sen. Jim Banks and Sen. Josh Hawley.
- The Senate advanced a budget plan to fund ICE and Border Patrol, yet folding voting rules into that reconciliation bill faces the Byrd Rule, which blocks provisions that are not mainly about taxes or spending.
- Sen. Mike Lee says the measure is not dead but offers no timetable, while Democrats and voting-rights groups say the Senate has effectively stalled it and some House conservatives threaten to link future surveillance votes to voter ID demands.