President Trump abruptly cancelled a signing ceremony Wednesday for a bipartisan bill to address the country’s affordable housing crisis, saying on his Truth Social page that he would do nothing until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, which he said he considered “a National Emergency.”
And a portion of Florida’s GOP delegation in Congress is standing right behind him in that effort.
The SAVE American Act would mandate strict documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, require government-issued photo ID at the polls, and limit mail-in voting.
The Florida Legislature passed its own version of the law earlier this year, although photo ID has been state law for decades.
The U.S. House overwhelmingly supported the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act earlier in the week, winning approval on a 358-32 vote, and six of those opposing the measure came from the Florida Republican delegation.
Those six were Byron Donalds, Anna Paulina Luna, Greg Steube, Randy Fine, Kat Cammack and Aaron Bean. Most of those members declared in a letter in March that they agreed with the president and were prepared to vote “no” on any bill passed by the Senate on the House floor until the upper chamber approves the SAVE America Act.
“When will the Senate learn that they cannot keep punching the American people in the face and not expect blowback to happen? Not one piece of their legislation will pass unless they pass the save America act,” Luna said Wednesday.
“Mr. President, thank you for putting our elections first,” Fine wrote on X. “Without secure elections, we don’t have a country. The SAVE America Act is a must — not a maybe. We stand with you. @SenateGOP, pass the damn bill.”
Donalds blasted the Senate on Thursday.
“The Senate sucks,” he said at a press conference in Washington. “This is not hard. Eighty percent of the American people want the SAVE America Act to pass. Not 80 percent of Republicans. Eighty percent of the American people. And the only organization that refuses to act is the United States Senate.”
That’s not exactly accurate. A Politico poll from May found that a plurality of Americans neither support or oppose the SAVE America Act. Several surveys do show that more than 80% of Americans support voters showing a photo ID to vote.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted last August found that 83% of adults favored “requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.”
Democrats have said that they oppose the SAVE America Act because it would also require proof of citizenship — such as passport or birth certificate — to register, a significantly higher burden of proof than photo ID.
In the House, all eight Florida Democrats voted against the SAVE America Act in April.
The Senate has failed to approve the SAVE America Act because it hasn’t received the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
The housing bill that came before the U.S. Senate this week also was passed overwhelmingly, 85-5. One of the five “no” votes came from Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott. Florida’s other Republican senator, Ashley Moody, supported the bill.
That measure would reduce some regulatory hurdles, including environmental reviews, for home construction and expand the possible uses of federal housing funds. It includes a provision to ban private equity firms from buying single-family homes, as well as to allow money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program to be used for construction of new affordable housing. It would tie the amount some cities and states receive from the $3.3 billion grant program to their rates of affordable housing construction.
Four of the Florida House members who opposed the housing bill — Donalds, Fine, Luna and Steube — also sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President John Thune in March expressing a “dire need to prohibit a Central Bank Digital Currency from ever happening in the United States,” adding that such a ban “must be permanent.”
The bill passed this week still includes a temporary Central Bank Digital Currency ban that the Republicans objected to, which will sunset at the end of 2030, TIME magazine reported.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
