• Hopewatch

Power of the People: The SAVE Act and its threat to American democracy

Laura Williamson

Person walks toward building with voting signs outside.

At our democracy’s imperfect founding, only white men who owned property could vote.

Through significant struggle and sacrifice, we’ve made progress. The Reconstruction amendments, the 19th Amendment, the Indian Citizenship Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — over time, these landmark developments have made voting rights real for people of color, women, language minorities and people with disabilities. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 helped ensure voter registration wasn’t a barrier to civic participation.

As with most progress expanding civil rights and freedoms, this advancement has been met with great resistance. Yet the overall story of American democracy has involved forward motion. The arc has bent toward a more inclusive democracy.

But for more than a decade, forces have been working overtime to bend the arc backward. A series of Supreme Court cases, most notoriously the Shelby County v. Holder decision gutting the heart of the Voting Rights Act, have weakened protections for voters of color and precipitated an onslaught of discriminatory and exclusionary voting laws across the country, especially in the Deep South. Experts estimate that states have passed well over 100 restrictive voting laws in the 12 years since that decision. 

Today, this anti-voter movement has risen to the federal level. President Trump recently issued an unconstitutional executive order (EO) on voting, and Republicans in Congress are pushing a dangerous, disingenuous bill that would make it harder for millions of American citizens to vote.

The so-called SAVE Act would require people to show a passport, birth certificate or similar document to register to vote. Millions of Americans do not have ready access to these documents. While the EO has been challenged in court and part of it is paused for now, the SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in early April. The bill is now with the Senate.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, yet this story is not one of politicians in Washington running roughshod over rights with no consequences. Let me explain.

When the 119th Congress opened in January, proponents of the bill posited the SAVE Act would sail through the House and have a good shot of passing the Senate and becoming law. In fact, House leadership was so confident that they included it in a small package of priority bills meant to sail through the chamber.

Yet the story of the SAVE Act didn’t unfold as they planned. The House vote on the bill kept getting pushed back, week after week. When it did eventually pass, it was not by the wide margins some had predicted.

In fact, two representatives who voted to support the bill last Congress changed their votes to opposition. Several senators have come out publicly opposing the bill in the wake of the House vote, and key senators of both parties have said the bill will go nowhere in the Senate.

That’s because Americans got educated on the harms of the bill and are mobilizing against it.

People have peppered lawmakers with questions and concerns about the bill at town halls across the country, in red and blue districts alike. To be sure, a majority of representatives voted for the bill anyway, allowing it to pass the House. But there’s no question that significant citizen engagement slowed its momentum. And members of Congress who voted to support the bill are getting an earful from their constituents.

Sampling of senators on record opposing the SAVE Act*

*-As of May 9, 2025

The SAVE Act is now with the Senate. Sustained constituent opposition is critical to prevent its passage and enactment into law. Contact your senator today and urge them to vote no.

While the story of American democracy is still being written, the trajectory of the SAVE Act so far provides an important lesson: Civic engagement does not stop at the ballot box. Democracy is realized day in and day out through sustained engagement between elections at all levels and on everything that matters to our communities, from voting rights to education and health care. And when our elected officials vote against the interests and priorities of their communities, we can hold them accountable in the next election.

We the people have power, and when we get educated and show up, we can change the course of history.

Laura Williamson is the senior policy advisor for voting rights and civic engagement at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Image at top: A voter enters the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, on Dec. 12, 2017, when a special election was held to fill Jeff Sessions’ seat in the U.S. Senate. (Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)