WATCH: Ranking Member Padilla Leads Fight Against SAVE America Act

WATCH: Padilla: "Senate Democrats will fight this voter suppression bill tooth and nail, day after day, night after night, for as long as it takes to protect our democracy."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, took to the Senate floor to lead the opposition to President Trump and Republicans' anti-voter SAVE America Act. Padilla outlined how the voter suppression bill would make it harder for Americans to register and cast their ballot, eliminate popular voter registration methods, and force states to submit sensitive voter data to the Department of Homeland Security, potentially leading to voter purges - all to prevent accountability for Republicans' failed policies that are raising costs for working families.

A transcript of Padilla's full remarks, as delivered, is available below. Video of his remarks can be watched online here and downloaded here.

Remarks as Delivered:

Mr. President,

I too rise in opposition to S. 1383, the so-called "SAVE America Act." I think a better name - more actually representative of the content of the bill - would be the "SAVE Republicans from the Consequences of Their Actions Act."

Now, I have some other choice names for it too, but not exactly appropriate for the Senate floor, so we'll stick to the SAVE Act just to be short.

Mr. President, last year, President Trump and Republicans in Congress promised the American people that they would lower costs - costs across the board, but specifically health care costs.

If you'll recall, just a few months ago, they promised to do something about the 15 million people that were being kicked off their health insurance when they failed to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

They failed on that promise.

The Administration's war on clean energy has driven electricity prices up 13% since Trump took office.

So much for "all of the above" energy strategies!

So much for energy dominance!

The price of oil is up 40% and gasoline is up 25% and rising in these few short weeks since Donald Trump initiated an unauthorized war on Iran.

That's the largest single-month increase in gas prices since Hurricane Katrina, just for context.

Now, I don't need to tell you all that many people are struggling with the rising cost of rents or their mortgages while the Speaker of the House reportedly told House Republicans that the President thinks "no one gives a [bleep] about housing."

Well, President Trump, listen to this: 76% of renters and non-homeowners asked in a recent poll by the National Association of Realtors [say] that they don't think they'll ever be able to afford to buy a house.

This Senate, at least, passed the bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act last week. And if our colleagues in the House got their act together, that bill has the potential to do a whole lot of good.

In addition to health care and housing, Congress urgently needs to act and deliver long-overdue disaster assistance for California and a number of other states and regions affected by disaster this last year.

So there's a lot of truly pressing issues for us to be focusing on and taking action on right now. But are we addressing any of those on this to-do list this week?

No! Not even close!

Instead of focusing on the affordability crisis or trying to save us from endless wars, Senate Republicans are once again doing Donald Trump's bidding.

This time, they're making his conspiracy-fueled election "takeover" bill their top priority.

Now, since we've launched into this debate over the bill, we've already heard all sorts of debunked lies and misinformation and misrepresentations repeated over and over again by our Republican colleagues.

So let me make a few things very clear.

First of all, no, this is not a simple voter ID bill. The latest version of the SAVE Act is a Trojan horse actually. It's a voter suppression bill, filled with poison pills and designed to change the rules of the election as we're in the middle of primary election season already and the November election on the horizon. And for what? For partisan political gain?

The President himself has said that if this bill passes, Republicans "will never lose a race. For 50 years, we won't lose a race."

The lead sponsor of this bill in the Senate has stated, "Republicans will lose power - likely for a long time - if we don't get the SAVE America Act passed."

Colleagues, it doesn't get any more obvious than that.

And here's how it works: the voter ID rhetoric is actually a bait and switch.

The SAVE Act does not allow Americans to use their driver's licenses or other common forms of ID to register to vote. That's right. The SAVE Act does not allow Americans to use their driver's licenses or common IDs to register to vote.

The SAVE Act would require a passport in order to vote -- something that half of Americans don't have, not to mention the $165 it costs and a four to six week wait time to get one. 

And if you're one of the 148 million Americans who does not have a passport, but you're otherwise eligible to vote, you will need to, what, maybe dig through the attic or call your parents to try to find your original birth certificate. That's if you still even have it.

According to one survey, there's an estimated 21 million people who lack access to these documents. That's a big chunk of the electorate.

And if you're one of the 69 million married women who chose to change your name when you got married, tough luck. Your name doesn't match your birth certificate anymore, even if you can find the birth certificate.

So now you have to jump through additional hoops and bring your birth certificate and your marriage license to the election office. That is your recourse.

Because just to make this even more of a burden, the SAVE Act mandates that you bring these documents - and let me quote from the bill - "in person to the office of the appropriate election official" and sign an affidavit. That's what the text of the bill says. And as a result, millions of women are going to face additional barriers to the ballot than their spouses have to face.

When does anybody have time for that? Some evening after work? Maybe on a weekend? That's assuming elections offices are open in the evenings and on weekends.

So more than likely, someone's going to have to take time off of work to register to vote or renew their registration.

What does the SAVE Act mean in practice if, heaven forbid, this passed and was signed into law?

Bottom line is the complete elimination of voter registration as we've known it for decades.

The voter registration drives that we see in communities and on college campuses - gone.

Online voter registration or mailing a voter registration card, which you sign under penalty of perjury, by the way - gone.

Motor voter - do you remember that element of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support of Congress, creating an opportunity to register to vote when you're doing your business at the Department of Motor Vehicles? That too - gone, or thrown into chaos.

It seems like the goal is actually very, very clear - let's eliminate opportunities for people to register to vote and have their voices heard in the elections.

Now, all of that was in the original SAVE Act, which thankfully, this Senate had the good sense to not even take up.

But this new version of the bill that is now before the Senate, we know was rushed through the House of Representatives and now seems to be rushed through the Senate without a single hearing. And this version is even worse.

How can it get worse? Folks, you're gonna love hearing this. This bill mandates that all 50 states share their confidential voter roll information with Trump's Department of Homeland Security.

That's right. Let me say that again: every state would be required to hand over confidential voter data to Trump's Department of Homeland Security, which, by the way, does not run elections. If they have any role in elections, it's to assist state and local governments with cybersecurity, but they're backtracking on that responsibility.

By the way, this is the same Department of Homeland Security which has been found in violation of 200 court orders since December alone, just in Minnesota alone.

And this is who the SAVE Act would entrust to take over voter list maintenance for every state in the nation? For what purpose?

So that political appointees of this Administration can go through the lists, again, every voter in every state, and order people that were on the voter rolls to be purged from those lists.

This isn't a hypothetical folks. The fact is, they're already test driving this power with states who are choosing to cooperate.

At least 12 states have provided the full statewide voter registration lists, including driver's license information and social security information. They either did it voluntarily or they succumbed to the political pressure by Donald Trump.

And the results of this demonstration should alarm all of us.

ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and other sources have found that, rather than identifying noncitizens on the rolls, DHS is sending back to the states "false positives," directing people to be removed from the voter lists who are actually United States citizens and eligible to vote.

That's right! This lawless and incompetent DHS is already trying to purge thousands of eligible Americans from the voter lists. And if this bill were to pass, it would supercharge those efforts with actual Congressional authorization. Is that what your goal is? Is that what you intend to do?

Not on my watch. Not on my watch!

But there's even more troubling provisions in this voter suppression bill.

And if you listen to Donald Trump, or better yet, just check the White House website, it says, and once again, I quote, "No mail-in ballots," with only a few very narrow exceptions.

So this bill would also ban "no excuse" absentee voting - which is widely used in 28 states across the country. And according to reports, President Trump himself has voted by mail.

Over 48 million people voted by mail in 2024. That's about 1 in 3 voters across the country, or ballots cast across the country.

And let me be clear about something: this is not a blue state versus red state dynamic.

The list of states that offer no-excuse vote-by-mail include Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

But sadly, too many Republicans simply cannot admit that emperor Trump has no clothes when it comes to elections.

Why are we doing this? I got to suspect that there's two primary reasons for this voter suppression effort.

First, because President Trump, and the agenda that this Republican majority has supported, has been so bad - not just so unpopular, but so harmful to American families - that they're trying to limit who can have a voice in the midterm elections.

The second, clearly, is Donald Trump's obsession with the Big Lie and his refusal to accept the fact that he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Now, we all know that after losing that 2020 election, Donald Trump encouraged a mob of his supporters to storm this building, the United States Capitol, including this very chamber, on January 6th.

Why? Because every single court case, every investigation, and recount confirmed the same exact thing: Donald Trump lost that election. But he felt like he needed to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Thank God for all the officers from the more than 15 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, as well as the National Guard, who protected the Capitol that day.

And I am grateful - I hope we're grateful on a bipartisan basis - that we have a plaque commemorating their heroism finally hanging in the Capitol.

But here we are, six years later, and Trump is as obsessed as ever with vengeance.

• Pursuing vindictive prosecutions of his perceived enemies.
• Seizing ballots in Georgia because I guess he's still trying to find those 11,870 votes.
• Sending subpoenas for the 2020 CyberNinjas audit - yes, the one that found that Joe Biden won Arizona by even more votes than originally thought.

So, make no mistake, the SAVE Act isn't about protecting our elections - it's about attacking them.

Mr. President, as you can tell, I am strongly opposed to this anti-voter bill. And I will do everything in my power to defeat it.

And no, I'm not alone.

Senate Democrats will fight this voter suppression bill tooth and nail, day after day, night after night, for as long as it takes to protect our democracy.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Padilla has led the charge opposing President Trump and Republicans' reckless attempts to restrict the right to vote. Earlier today, Padilla, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.-25), Representative Joe Morelle (N.Y.-25), and voting rights advocates held a press conference rejecting Trump and Congressional Republicans' attempted election takeover, including through the SAVE America Act. Last month, Padilla took to the Senate floor to condemn Republicans' attempts to pass the SAVE America Act. Last May, he stopped Senator Mike Lee's (R-Utah) attempt to pass the anti-voter SAVE Act through the Senate by unanimous consent. He also convened a Rules Committee Democrats spotlight forum focused on Congressional Republicans' SAVE Act and Trump's illegal anti-voter executive order. As President Trump marked 100 disastrous days in office, Padilla led his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor to speak out against the SAVE Act and the Trump Administration's attacks on election integrity. Last April, he warned Secretaries of State, Lieutenant Governors, and Chief Election Officials across the country of the devastating potential impacts of the SAVE Act, concerns that have been echoed by top election officials across the country. Padilla also led a letter sounding the alarm on the devastating impacts on voting rights in Native American communities of the SAVE Act and Trump's executive order.

In January, Senator Padilla and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led 26 Senate colleagues in pressing DOJ to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters' personally identifiable information. Last October, Padilla and Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit opposing the Trump Administration's illegal ongoing attempts to purge state voter rolls across the country by developing a massive interagency database of Americans' sensitive personal data. Additionally, Padilla and Representative Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio-03) announced the Voter Purge Protection Act last year to prevent the Trump Administration's ongoing voter purge efforts, including by prohibiting the removal of individuals from the voter rolls due to changes in residence or not voting in previous elections.

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