Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Monday slammed a Republican voting requirement bill championed by President Trump as a top priority piece of legislation as “nothing but a throwback” to Jim Crow laws.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act “is nothing but a throwback to those laws that were passed after Reconstruction that made it impossible for African Americans to get elected,” Clyburn told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
If passed, the SAVE America Act will require Americans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and a valid ID in order to cast a ballot.
“And if the SAVE Act becomes law,” Clyburn continued, “it will reduce –– dramatically –– the number of African Americans currently serving in the Congress, and I think that what we need to do is spend our time working on saving this democracy that some people seem to want to throw into the ditch.”
The 85-year-old South Carolina Democrat, who last week announced he will seek an 18th term in Congress, echoed a comparison that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made about the SAVE America Act last month.
“The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0,” Schumer wrote in a post on the social platform X. “It would disenfranchise millions of Americans. Every single Senate Democrat will vote against any bill that contains it.”
“Speaker Johnson should tell SAVE Act Republicans to stand down or else this shutdown will be on them,” he added, referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
The bill passed in the House in a 218-213 vote in February. The bill’s stalled progress in the Senate has led Trump’s GOP allies to take over the floor this week to get the bill passed.
The president’s allies are frustrated in that they are unable to force Democrats to stage a talking filibuster to block the bill. Those allies are now pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to keep the bill on the floor to draw out arguing with Democrats over it and tiring them into voting.
Thune said last week that he does not have the votes to force the Democrats’ hand because there is not enough GOP unity to repeatedly table Democratic amendments to derail the SAVE America Act.
GOP senators have said they will force Democrats to take tough votes on different amendments, such as barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports or requiring people to show voter identification to vote by mail.
Schumer on Sunday said Senate Democrats are prepared for “every possible scenario.”
“My caucus really feels strongly that this would be a horror, one of the worst things that’s happened in the history of this country in terms of allowing people to vote,” he added.
