EDITORIAL: Leader John Thune is right. The “talking filibuster” would not pass the SAVE America Act. It would be a gift to the Left.

As anyone who has spent time on political X in the past few months has seen, Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) is arguing that if Senate Republicans only fight harder, they can muscle the SAVE America Act through a “talking filibuster” by forcing Democrats to keep debating it until they fold.

This is false. And it leaves Leader John Thune (R., S.D.,) with two options. He can tell the truth and disappoint conservatives who believe Senator Lee, or he can play along with the charade, still fail to pass the SAVE America Act, and give the left a massive win.

Thune is showing leadership by telling the truth. And here’s why he’s right. 

First, look at what its proponents actually claim. Lee laid out the process in a long thread on X on how Save America gets 60 votes. It boils down to this:

Step 1: Republicans put the SAVE America Act on the floor and force Democrats to debate it for a long time.

Step 2: ????

Step 3: Democrats see the error of their ways, fold, and hand over the votes needed to pass the SAVE America Act.

The problem, of course, is Step 2 — the part Lee never gets around to explaining. 

At what point in the debate do the Democratic senators we need suddenly decide to back the bill?

The answer is, of course, Democratic Senators would never support the SAVE America Act even if Republicans forced them to debate it for 100 years. 

If the talking filibuster were a magic key that unlocked the 60-vote threshold, Democrats would have used it. They tried. In 2021 and 2022 they controlled the White House and both chambers, and they wanted to pass voting legislation so badly that in January 2022 they tried to change the filibuster rules to allow for a successful “talking filibuster.” Sens. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) wouldn’t let them — with Sen. Lee’s enthusiastic support. 

If “just make them talk” actually produced votes, that is exactly when it would have been deployed. It wasn’t, because it doesn’t.

Lee is the loudest voice insisting otherwise, and even he cannot explain the moment in this process when committed Democrats abandon their position and vote for a Republican bill.

Here is what a talking filibuster would actually produce. For as long as it ran, the Senate would conduct no other business. No confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees — not even any hearings. No government funding. No fighting fraud. No stopping Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D., Calif.) price raising regulations. No forcing Democrats onto the record on immigration or blue slips or any of the other fights the administration wants to have.

The SAVE America Act is a great bill. It also does not have 60 votes, and no amount of floor theater changes that. What is also true is what Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said: the current version of the SAVE America Act which prohibits mail ballots does not even have 50 votes. It has 49.

Thune’s job as leader is to tell the truth and advance the interests of conservatives, even when it’s news that many don’t want to hear. He is doing that job well and he deserves praise for it, even though he is much likelier to get hate on X.