Voter ID Passed - What Happened Next Has Democrats Shaken to Their Core
A majority of House and Senate Republicans have been trying to pass legislation that 75-80 percent of the American people on both sides of the aisle want, but a year later, it still hasn’t reached President Trump’s desk.
Of course, we’re talking about the SAVE America Act, with its provisions for federal voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements as election-integrity upgrades.
On Wednesday, the House passed legislation to implement voter identification requirements ahead of the midterm elections by attaching the measure to a separate bill that would also restrict members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
But here’s the catch: The Voter ID Act, included as part of the Stop Insider Trading Act, faces long odds in the Senate, where it would require 60 votes to advance.
Nevertheless, the House approved the package largely along party lines on Wednesday, July 22, by a vote of 232-198.
The legislation, introduced in part in response to President Donald Trump’s call for Congress to adopt key provisions of the controversial SAVE America Act, may not become law.
Even so, it is expected to shape the midterm election debate by highlighting issues such as congressional ethics, stock trading, election integrity, and voter identification.
Again, according to recent polling, the vast majority of Americans want voter ID, making it extremely frustrating for them and the president over Congress’s inability to get it done.
Republicans have accused Democrats of opposing what they describe as common-sense election reforms that enjoy broad public support. Thirteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill.
Most Democrats, however, opposed the legislation. Critics, including Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., argued that Republicans used a legislative “trick” to advance provisions they said would significantly undermine mail-in voting, USA Today reported.
“Make no mistake; this is a trap,” Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-Rhode Island, said on the House floor.
“This bill is to make it harder for eligible Americans to vote, and the Republican leadership is trying to trick us into supporting it by calling it a congressional stock trading ban,” he falsely claimed.
It is insanely easy to obtain an ID from any number of government entities, and in most cases, the ID is cost-free.
Republicans argued that a controversy that emerged this week in New Jersey underscored the need to pass the legislation.
The state’s governor attributed the mistaken addition of approximately 6,600 non-U.S. citizens to the voter rolls to a programming error at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission.
USA Today claimed that about 400 of those non-citizens voted, but it’s not clear where the outlet came up with that number.
USA Today also claimed that the addition of the 6,600 non-citizens was due to a “software error,” but the software company, France-based IDEMIA, has since denied those claims and laid the blame squarely on New Jersey officials.
“Voter ID ensures the sanctity of our elections and ensures confidence by the American people in our elections,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York.
“The American people should watch how every single member votes on this bill.”
The Stop Insider Trading Act, which was combined with the voter ID legislation, would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from purchasing individual stocks while in office.
However, the bill would not require lawmakers to divest any stocks they already own. A separate bipartisan proposal, the Restore Trust in Congress Act, would go further by requiring members of Congress to sell their existing individual stock holdings.
Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin who introduced the recently passed bill, stated that opponents of the legislation presented conflicting arguments.
“Some the arguments made today are what I call the Goldilocks argument: The bill doesn’t do enough, or the bill does too much,” he said on the House floor.
James Carville Just Threatened to Leave the Democratic Party – We’ll Give You One Guess As To Why
James Carville has been a Democrat his entire adult life. He helped elect Bill Clinton. He has spent thirty years as one of the party’s most recognizable attack dogs, willing to say things on television that politer Democratic operatives only say in private. And on Saturday, he drew a line.
“I am NOT going to be in the same party as Hasan Piker! I can tell you that RIGHT NOW. If he becomes a force within the Democratic Party, I’m out of here!”
This is the most honest thing James Carville has said in years. It’s also the most futile.
Because Hasan Piker — the Twitch streamer and DSA-aligned socialist influencer who has built a massive following among young progressive voters — already is a force within the Democratic Party. He has backed and campaigned with the two DSA candidates who just won primaries in New York City. He is supporting Abdul El-Sayed, who currently leads the Democratic primary field for the Michigan Senate seat. He has more influence over the party’s base voters than Carville does. And he’s not going anywhere.
Carville knows the stakes. “This idea that we’re going to ‘seize the means of production’ — just look at the DSA platform,” he said. He’s right about what the platform says. He’s wrong to think the party is going to do anything serious about it. One-third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists. Fifty-two percent of all Democrats view socialism favorably — sixty-six percent by Gallup’s count. The DSA co-chair went on Fox News and confirmed she wants to abolish the Senate, the Pentagon, and the prisons. Not one Democratic senator of consequence went on national television to disavow her.
The “big tent” that Carville is raging against isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate strategic choice by a party establishment that calculated — incorrectly, as it turns out — that it could absorb the DSA’s energy without absorbing its ideology. Every primary season, that calculation gets a little harder to defend. Every Hasan Piker endorsement that actually wins produces a candidate who doesn’t want the same things Carville wants. The tent isn’t getting smaller. The socialists inside it are.
The Michigan Senate race is where Carville’s nightmare arrives in full. Abdul El-Sayed — DSA-endorsed, Piker-backed, openly socialist — is the current frontrunner for the nomination in a state Republicans desperately need to win in November. If El-Sayed wins the primary, Carville will face his moment of truth. Does he campaign for him? Does he stay home? Does he actually leave?
My guess: he stays, complains loudly on television, and votes Democrat anyway. That’s what he’s always done. That’s what most of the party’s moderate wing has always done. And that accommodation is exactly how the DSA took over without ever winning a majority.
Carville threatened to leave. The socialists are counting on the fact that he won’t.
Trump Admin Rushes to SCOTUS to Save Critical Election Integrity Order
The Trump administration on Monday filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court in a decisive move to protect the integrity of America’s elections.
President Donald Trump’s team is seeking to lift a lower-court injunction that has blocked key provisions of President Donald Trump’s landmark Executive Order aimed at verifying citizenship and securing mail-in ballots.
The application in Trump v. California, submitted by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, asks the justices to stay an injunction issued by a Massachusetts federal judge that prevents the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Service, and other agencies from implementing vital safeguards ahead of the November 3, 2026, midterm elections.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who received the application, has ordered the opposing states – led by California – to respond by 4 p.m. EDT on August 3.
At stake is Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” signed by President Trump on March 31, 2026.
The order directs the Secretary of Homeland Security, working with the Social Security Administration, to compile and transmit to each state’s chief election official “State Citizenship Lists” – verified rosters of confirmed U.S. citizens who will be 18 or older and reside in that state at the time of upcoming federal elections.
These lists draw from existing federal citizenship, naturalization, SSA, and SAVE program records.
Crucially, the order also instructs the Postal Service to set rules for secure ballot envelopes with unique Intelligent Mail barcodes for tracking and to send mail-in or absentee ballots only to individuals on state-specific participation lists provided by the states.
It further prioritizes Justice Department investigations and prosecutions of officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters and authorizes withholding of federal funds from noncompliant jurisdictions where appropriate.
“These common-sense measures ensure that only American citizens vote in American elections and that the U.S. Mail is not used as a vehicle for fraud,” the administration has emphasized.
Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections, yet vulnerabilities in voter rolls and mass mail-in systems persist.
The order modernizes verification without rewriting state election administration, relying instead on federal data sharing and secure handling of ballots already moving through the postal system.
A coalition of Democratic-led states, including California, Massachusetts, and more than 20 others plus the District of Columbia, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
On June 25, Judge Indira Talwani ruled that Sections 2 and 3 of the order were “ultra vires and violate the separation of powers,” and barred federal agencies from implementing them for the plaintiff states in elections on or before November 3, 2026.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals later denied the administration’s request for a stay pending appeal.
The Justice Department argues that the injunction inflicts irreparable harm by preventing timely preparation for the midterms.
Deadlines are approaching rapidly: states must notify the Postal Service of their intent to use mail ballots by early August and submit voter lists by early September for the November election.
Without the citizenship lists and secure mailing protocols, the administration contends, the risk of ineligible ballots remains elevated, undermining public confidence.
This fight is central to President Trump’s agenda.
Throughout his campaign and second term, he has repeatedly highlighted the dangers of unchecked mail-in voting and the need to confirm citizenship at every step.
“We must have elections that are honest, secure, and trusted by the American people,” Trump has stated in connection with these reforms.
Non-citizen voting erodes the principle that the franchise belongs exclusively to citizens.
Mass mail-in systems have long raised chain-of-custody concerns, opportunities for ballot harvesting, and delays that fuel distrust.
By seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court, the administration is underscoring the urgency.
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The midterms will determine control of Congress and the direction of the country for the remainder of Trump’s term.
The filing argues that allowing activist lower-court judges to freeze executive action on election security sets a dangerous precedent, especially when the order operates within existing federal authorities and respects state primacy in running elections.
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