WATCH: Padilla: “So-Called SAVE America Act Would Be a Huge Step Backwards for Our Country”

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and California's former Secretary of State, continued leading Democrats' charge against the anti-voter SAVE America Act. In a speech on the Senate floor, Padilla warned about the devastating consequences of the legislation, which threatens to disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans in an election year, bans mail-in voting, undermines widely-used voter registration methods, and requires all states to hand over their unredacted voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, potentially leading to voter purges.

Padilla underscored examples of thousands of eligible citizens across the country who lost their fundamental right to vote because of flawed state election policies mirrored by the SAVE America Act. He emphasized that Senate Democrats "will continue opposing this bill … today, tonight, tomorrow, for as long as it takes," to protect Americans' fundamental right to vote.

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:

Thank you, Mr. President.

I've been saying all week, colleagues, that Democrats would be here on the floor fighting this Republican voter suppression bill, this so-called SAVE America Act, tooth and nail for as long as it takes. And we're keeping that promise because Republicans are trying to pull off this bait and switch for the American people.

Let me be clear: this bill is anything but a voter ID bill. If you're a married woman who chose to change her name when she got married, you could be kept from registering to vote under this bill. If this bill were to pass, vote-by-mail, that option would be gone. No-excuse absentee voting - that too would be gone. Your driver's license, which most people think would be sufficient under a voter ID law to access the ballot box - not good enough anymore.

Why? It's because the American people are tired and angry about the Donald Trump disastrous agenda, the failures of the Republican majority to improve their lives. And instead of facing the consequences of their actions and owning their record, they want to change the rules of our elections to avoid consequences from the voters.

And I can't help but note the timing of this debate. 61 years ago, this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress, delivering a powerfully important message to his fellow Americans, a message that is still resonating to this very day. He said, "rarely are we met with a challenge not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation." A challenge to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our nation. That's a pretty good summary of what's happening this week.

President Johnson went on to say, and again, I quote, "every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right."

President Johnson was speaking not just to Congress, but to America, in the days after Bloody Sunday when civil rights activists, including former Congressmember John Lewis, when they were violently attacked and beaten crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched for the right to vote.

Now, many of us have treasured memories with John Lewis, and Mr. President, I keep this photo in my office, where it inspires me every single day. In the weeks that followed Bloody Sunday, our country and Congress rose to meet the moment, and coming together, Congress passed one of the most significant pieces in our nation's history, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, yet here we are today debating a bill that would turn back the clock, that would do so much to deny so many their most fundamental right as Americans: our right to vote. That's shameful.

In this country, the right to vote is a sacred thing. After casting our ballots, so many people are so proud to share with their friends, share with the public, that they have participated in our democracy, they've done their civic duty, they wear buttons, they wear stickers, which is why we cannot allow these efforts to restrict voter access that are at the heart of this bill. Now doing so would be an enormous and dangerous step backwards.

Under again, the so-called SAVE America Act, all 50 states would be required to send their voter rolls, including a lot of private information of voters, to the Department of Homeland Security. I spoke a couple of days ago as to why the Department of Homeland Security is the last entity we would want handling this vital information. Now, once there, known election deniers who have been appointed by the Administration would certainly run these lists through the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE Program - a different kind of save than the name of this bill - the SAVE Program, and they would then give back to states lists of names of voters that should be removed from their lists.

And colleagues, as you know, a substitute amendment has been filed for the SAVE America Act that's before us that now forces further reliance on unreliable data from the Social Security Administration. It wasn't that long ago that we discovered that data was being misused by DOGE with a secret agreement to share the data that they got their hands on with outside political groups seeking to overturn election results.

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, let me be abundantly clear with this point: this is not an accusation. Trump's Department of Justice has admitted to this in court. And here's another admission that the Administration has made: "Due to misspellings of names, transposed numbers, or incomplete information, the SAVE Program may produce inaccurate results."

Again, this is not theoretical. This is not an accusation. It is happening right now. Twelve states have chosen, or have been politically pressured to cooperate by providing the Trump Administration with their voter rolls. And there's been analysis and review of how this demonstration is going.

NPR reports that as of December, the information of more than 47 million voters have been run through the SAVE Program at DHS, and that means the Administration is already flagging American citizens, eligible American voters to be purged from the rolls. And colleagues, you know what happens when a voter has been purged from the rolls. The burden falls on the voter to undo it, to navigate bureaucracy in order to prove their citizenship once again and to register to vote once again. But many won't even know there's a problem until they show up on election day, and they're turned away because even though they've been voting there for years and years and years, all of a sudden, they're not on the list.

Texas is one of those 12 states, and again, the review of the activity that's already happening by DHS and this so-called SAVE Program. In Travis County, 25% of the flagged names had already proven their citizenship - one in four voters. And in Boone County, Missouri, another state that's participating, more than half of the voters that DHS told those states to remove were citizens.

So let that sink in for a moment. 25 to 50% of the names were flagged in error. One in four voters, half of voters. Can you see how this would be a huge problem? Eligible voters being removed from the rolls and even referred to DHS for possible criminal investigation.

That's the broken system that Donald Trump wants to use to maintain voter rolls nationwide. And that's the question being posed to the Senate and to Congress. I know how Democrats are responding.

So the question is, really, is this what Republicans want too? As you look through the rest of the bill, you know that this SAVE Program utilization is not the only problem.

And we don't have to guess as to what the strict documentation requirements would cause if imposed on the voters. Look no further than the state of Kansas. When they tried something very similar to this just a few years ago, 31,000 eligible citizens [were] blocked from registering to vote. 31,000 eligible citizens blocked in Kansas. If I was the Senator from Kansas, I'd be up in arms.

Or look to New Hampshire. Hundreds of voters were turned away last year under a recently enacted state law because they didn't have a passport or a birth certificate on hand when they went to the polls - the very types of requirements in the language of the bill before us.

Joshua Bogden was one of those voters. In the late afternoon on election day, he turned up at his polling site to vote, only to be turned away because all he had on him was his driver's license that day. He had to race home and frantically search for his passport, then race back to the polls before they closed. Thankfully, he was able to vote that day, but he admitted later that if there was anything that might have delayed him - having to take longer to find the passport, maybe getting caught up in traffic - he would not have been able to cast his vote. He would have been denied his fundamental right to vote.

Now, I've also heard some of the sponsors of this bill say, oh, don't worry if you don't have the proper paperwork at hand, there's going to be a separate process. And they replied to me, oh, just read the bill. Well, guess what? I have read the bill, and I'll tell you about this last-minute provision, this last-minute affidavit process that's been inserted into the bill to try to provide cover for those hiding behind the true intent. The fact of the matter is that there's no clear standards for this alternate process that they're pointing to. There's no clear explanation to how it would work.

All we do know is that if this bill were to pass and be signed by the President, it would go into effect immediately. So let's be clear about what's fundamentally happening here. Maintaining accurate voter rolls is vital for our elections. It requires precision. It requires transparency. Trust me, I served as California's Secretary of State prior to coming to the Senate. Nobody understands this in this body better than I do.

But I also understand that that transparency, that precision, is not in this bill. Instead, this bill creates a system where mistakes are inevitable. And if mistakes are inevitable, then it is inevitable that people will be denied their fundamental right to vote.

There's a reason, colleagues, that President Johnson and civil rights leaders came to push so hard for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. It was to move our country forward, not backward.

But this bill, this so-called SAVE America Act, would be a huge step backwards for our country.

Democrats are prepared to meet this challenge. We'll continue opposing this bill. I'll say it again today, tonight, tomorrow, for as long as it takes.

Nothing is more fundamental in our democracy than the right to vote, and we will do everything in our power to protect it.

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. Yesterday, Padilla joined leading voting rights advocates and impacted voters from across the country at the Capitol to push back against the anti-voter SAVE America Act. Earlier this week, Padilla took to the Senate floor to lead the opposition to the bill. Padilla, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Representative Joe Morelle (N.Y.-25), and voting rights advocates also held a press conference rejecting Trump and Congressional Republicans' attempted election takeover, including through the SAVE America Act. Last month, Padilla spoke on the Senate floor to condemn Republicans' attempts to pass the bill. 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.

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.

###