The SAVE America Act, which President Trump has declared his top legislative priority and the key to his party winning the midterm elections, may be beyond saving.
After nearly two weeks of grinding it out on the Senate floor in a less-than-scintillating showdown, Republicans appear to be publicly acknowledging what was always clear to many of them: They do not have the votes to overcome united Democratic opposition to their legislation to place strict new requirements on voter registration, voter identification and mail-in balloting — and they do not expect the extended Senate floor debate to pay off with a victory.
What is more, far from the theatrics of the all-out filibuster fight that many on the hard right had been clamoring for, Republicans have not managed to muster much in the way of politically explosive moments on the Senate floor as they seek to put Democrats on the spot on the bill.
There have been no overnight sessions, no cots outside the Senate chamber and no exhausted lawmakers droning on for hours — though the Senate did stay in session last weekend in a demonstration of determination. Members of both parties have trooped to the floor to have their say on the bill in standard floor speeches, and a series of votes have so far ended in the expected party-line standoffs, with no breakthrough anywhere in sight.
G.O.P. leaders now say they may try to dodge a Democratic filibuster by trying to squeeze the legislation through Congress using a special budget process, in what would amount to a procedural bank shot facing nearly impossible odds.
The detour is alarming hard-right champions of the bill, who view it as a surrender to Democrats. They see little chance of success if Republicans resort to using complex filibuster-proof rules known as budget reconciliation to try to get the measure over the finish line.
Those rules allow legislation to be pushed through on a majority vote but also require that any provisions meet specific budget goals, not policy objectives like those in what Republicans have dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.
“There are many things the Senate could pass with a simple majority using the procedure known as ‘budget reconciliation,’” Senator Mike Lee, the Utah Republican and chief proponent of the legislation, wrote on social media. “The SAVE America Act is *not* one of them.”
The approach gained momentum as part of negotiations aimed at resolving the impasse over funding for the Homeland Security Department, which has been without new money since Valentine’s Day.
The funding lapse has left Transportation Security Administration workers going without pay and led to chaos and long lines for screening at some airports. That is a highly sensitive subject for lawmakers fearing election-year backlash from the traveling public, particularly when those lawmakers want to fly out themselves on a planned two-week recess.
But Mr. Trump told Republicans last weekend that he did not want to entertain any spending deal unless the Senate first passed the elections bill. That led to intensified discussions about using the arcane budget law to advance the voting bill, a move that seemed aimed at reassuring Mr. Trump that Republicans were not abandoning it.
Some Republicans insisted, however, that achieving major elements of the election bill could be accomplished through the budget process.
“I believe we can get important provisions in there,” said Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota, who said it could represent a “down payment” on the voter legislation. “Whether it is exactly what everybody wants, well, we will see.”
He noted that federal funding provided to states to conduct elections would clearly fall under budgetary rules and give Republicans a procedural opening.
The problem for Republicans is that the reconciliation process requires legislation to undergo a strict review by the Senate parliamentarian to make sure that the provisions pass budgetary muster. They can be tossed out of the bill if they do not, which has happened frequently in the past as both parties have tried to make end runs around the filibuster.
Senate Republicans could always try to overrule the parliamentarian and plunge ahead, but that would be deemed as undermining the filibuster, something that Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader, has said he will not do and probably does not have the votes to do on the voter bill regardless.
“Obviously, the parliamentarian has a role to play in that process,” Mr. Thune said on Tuesday, indicating that he did not intend to challenge any parliamentarian ruling if it came to that. “In the past we have respected it, and I would expect we would do that.”
Mr. Thune brought the voter bill to the floor under intense pressure from Mr. Trump and conservatives who maintained that it was needed to prevent noncitizens from voting, even though there is no evidence of any widespread effort by them to do so. Mr. Lee and other Republicans have urged Mr. Thune to try to keep the measure on the floor as long as necessary, to force Democrats to stand and defend their objections to the bill in what they hoped would be a fiery showdown.
But Democrats, who have remained almost entirely united against the measure, do not appear cowed. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, noted on Tuesday that Mr. Trump himself had voted by mail in a local Florida special election, even though he has railed against mail-in voting as “cheating.” (His candidate lost.) The Republican legislation would impose new restrictions on the widely accepted practice, and a proposed Republican amendment would all but ban it.
“Typical Trump hypocrisy,” Mr. Schumer said. “It’s fraud when Americans do it, but fine when he does.” Mr. Schumer said that Mr. Trump’s vote showed that “it’s never been about fraud. It’s about rigging the election.”
Republicans are quietly hoping that the Supreme Court alleviates some of the pressure on them to crack down on voting by mail by ruling against a Mississippi law that allows mailed-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to still be counted even if they are received after voting has ended.
Despite the dim outlook for the voting bill, its adherents are urging Mr. Thune to keep it on the floor for the foreseeable future and pound away at Democrats. They warn that consequences for Republicans will be dire if they fail.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina Republican congressman and White House chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. “If republicans in the senate fail to pass the SAVE America Act, Democrats will take control.”
While it is unlikely to satisfy conservatives, Mr. Thune said that even if the legislation ultimately died, Republicans had been able to put Democrats on the record against what the G.O.P. characterizes as basic efforts to safeguard elections.
“What’s been made clear in this debate is how out of touch Democrats are with most Americans,” Mr. Thune said. “Democrats have repeatedly demonstrated they don’t share the American people’s interest in securing our elections.”
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent for The Times, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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