Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Archives

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How Luna Says GOP Can Force a National ID Requirement to Vote

February 7, 2026/in America 250, Courts & Law, Election Fraud, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Politics, Social Issues, Voter REAL ID, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wants the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo identification for voters in federal elections, to become law. For that to happen, she says it might have to be attached to a “must-pass” foreign intelligence bill.

“The Senate has now sat on this for over 300 days,” Luna, R-Fla., told Punchbowl News in an interview published Thursday. “Something that … many members of Congress are tired of is ‘messaging bills’ … It doesn’t actually feel like we’re doing much of anything.”

“Messaging bills” are pieces of legislation with little possibility of becoming law that members support to amplify their political messaging.

Next week, the House will vote on the SAVE America Act. A previous version of the bill, the SAVE Act, passed by a 220-208 vote in April 2025.

The new bill, if signed into law, would enforce a national requirement of photo identification in order to vote in federal elections, in addition to requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.

It would also, as in the original SAVE Act, require states to clear voter rolls of individuals who cannot prove their citizenship for federal elections.

But Luna said that, in order to pressure Congress to approve it, Republicans may have to insert the bill into another bill reauthorizing part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA.

On April 20, the federal government’s authority to conduct warrantless surveillance on noncitizens will sunset and require renewal from Congress.

“I do believe that the only way voter ID is going to pass is if it is attached to a must-pass piece of legislation. I think that that’s going to be FISA,” said Luna, who noted her previous opposition to FISA.

Asked if she believed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., agreed, Luna replied, “I think the speaker is with me on this understanding that … we’re going to do it on a stand-alone and hope the Senate does the right thing, but that it’s likely going to have to go in FISA.”

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request from The Daily Signal to confirm or deny Luna’s description of his views.

Luna has also recently called for Senate Republicans to overcome the typical 60-vote threshold for debate to end a bill, the filibuster, by forcing Democrats to speak continuously to stall passage of the SAVE Act, a procedural move known as the “talking filibuster.”

Luna added in the interview, “I don’t speak for the speaker, but that’s based on my conversations.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a supporter of the SAVE Act, recently told The Daily Signal that he believes Republicans must place it in must-pass legislation in order for it to become law.

“If we want any leverage, I think we should attach voter ID … If not the whole SAVE Act, some subset of the SAVE Act should be put into every appropriations bill,” Massie told The Daily Signal on Wednesday.

“If we’re going to have a fight over a shutdown, make it over whether we have secure elections or not.”

AUTHOR

George Caldwell

George Caldwell is a correspondent for The Daily Signal. Send an email to George. George on X: @GCaldwell_news.

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A Second ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’: What Might Be in It?

July 13, 2025/in America 250, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Taxes/by The Daily Signal

As Speaker of the House Mike Johnson teases subsequent budget reconciliation bills to follow up on the recently enacted “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Republicans in Congress are already filling out their wish lists for reforms they want included in it.

Johnson, R-La., laid out his plan in an interview Sunday, two days after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law by President Donald Trump on the Fourth of July.

“We’ve been planning a second reconciliation bill for the fall that would be attached to the next fiscal year, and then potentially one in the spring. That’s my plan—three reconciliation bills before this Congress is over,” he said, adding:

You’ll see more of us advancing these commonsense principles to deliver that ‘America First’ agenda for the American people.

Under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which created the budget reconciliation process, Congress is generally allowed one reconciliation bill per fiscal year for each budget resolution, which is essentially a nonbinding rough draft for the legislation.

The appeal of a budget reconciliation bill is obvious: It allows for massive policy changes while avoiding the requirement of 60 votes to end debate in the Senate.

But passing a second Big, Beautiful Bill might be just as hard as passing the first one.

For one thing, the GOP has succeeded in its main mission of delivering on tax cuts and border security. Without those incentives, it might be difficult to create the same sense of urgency for members to get on board.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told reporters on a call this week that he wants subsequent bills to focus on increased savings.

“I think there are still reforms that we could include that would save money, that are efficiency-related, waste- and fraud-related,” he said.

He added, however, “I don’t have a lot of hope that it will be a significant amount of savings, just because I think we maxed out a big chunk of that in this process.”

Arrington also said that a second bill could be another chance to craft provisions that could pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian—the chamber’s rules keeper, who struck a number of benefits reforms using the Byrd Rule, which prohibits provisions that are more policy-oriented than budgetary.

“I think those—we need to spend more time” crafting the provisions to pass muster with the parliamentarian, Arrington said, adding:

I don’t think we spent enough time to look for a pathway to success on them, and that’s sort of the landscape, as I see it, of the opportunities in another reconciliation bill.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who voted against the Big, Beautiful Bill because of its $5 trillion debt-ceiling increase, also said he was unsure how many cuts could be put into a subsequent bill.

“I’d like to see Congress grow a spine. I’m not so sure that’s going to happen,” he said. “What will change things between the last bill and the next bill?”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., however, expressed hope this week that he could see further reconciliation bills make deeper spending cuts.

He told reporters that promises of a second bill were part of what won him over after weeks of expressing concerns about the initial bill’s ability to address an ever-growing national debt.

“Another reason why I definitely had to vote ‘yes,’ I would have just dealt myself out of being involved in that process. And I wanted to be highly involved in that process,” he said.

“I gained a fair amount of confidence from the White House, the president, our leadership, that we will have a second bite of the apple.”

AUTHOR

George Caldwell

George Caldwell is a journalism fellow at The Daily Signal. Send an email to George. George on X: @GCaldwell_news.

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Senate Should Make House’s Big, Beautiful Bill Bigger, More Beautiful

May 27, 2025/in Elections, Government Transparency, Healthcare, Hot Topics, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Social Issues, Tariffs, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

On Thursday at 6:54 a.m., the U.S. House passed the Trump and Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Yup, that is this 1,118-page measure’s official title.) By a snare-drum-tight, 215-214 vote, all but three Republicans and zero Democrats chose to give Americans $4.1 trillion in tax relief, along with their bacon, eggs, tea, and toast.

President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (both Louisiana Republicans) were the chefs who moved this elaborate meal from kitchen to table. It has plenty to nourish this economy:

The One Big, Beautiful Bill makes permanent the rates in the Trump/GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Every House Democrat voted to let these lower rates lapse on January 1 and slap average taxpayers with a 22% tax hike.
As promised: No taxes on tips or overtime, plus tax leniency for seniors.
Deregulation and incentives should boost fuel production, restore energy dominance, slash gasoline prices, and curb electric bills.
“The House did a good job stopping massive new subsidies for solar and wind projects,” wrote reliable-energy advocate Alex Epstein. He urges lawmakers to “terminate the Green New Scam once and for all.”
The One Big, Beautiful Bill expands health savings accounts, enhances patient power, and bolsters medical freedom.

There is lots to like here, and the Senate should make this bill bigger and more beautiful.

First, senators should include something the House neglected: A 15% tax for companies that manufacture in America. This lower rate would be 28.6% lighter than today’s 21% corporate levy. This dramatically would encourage firms to produce domestically, rather than overseas. This would make it much cheaper to build U.S. factories and hire Americans than to create jobs abroad.

Conversely, enterprises that manufacture in China will find it far easier to thumb their noses at the Chinese Communist Party, come home, and keep 85% of their earnings.

The Cato Institute reports a 15% U.S. corporate rate would ease domestic manufacturers from paying Earth’s 24th lowest business levy to enjoying its sixth-lightest such tax. This is the fast lane to reindustrialization, rather than the traffic jam of higher tariffs. The latter merely hikes taxes on U.S. importers, who typically raise U.S. consumers’ price tags.

Second, some Senate Republicans demand deeper spending cuts, as they should. This makes other GOP senators sweat. Compromise: Freeze federal discretionary expenditures for one year. Pressing the pause button on such outlays for 12 months—while lowering or raising specific disbursements as necessary beneath that ceiling—would save taxpayers $49 billion next year alone.

Finally, some Senate Republicans are nervous about keeping the House’s work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients. When Democrats scream that such rules are “worse than Hitler,” Republicans should remind them that former President Bill Clinton signed a work requirement within 1996’s bipartisan welfare reform law.

Republicans should quote these words to Democrats: “Since 1987, when I first proposed an overhaul of the welfare system, I have argued that welfare recipients should be required to work … I was pilloried by many of my friends back then for even suggesting the idea of requiring work. Today, I think everyone here believes that work should be the premise of our welfare system.”

That statement was uttered in 1996 by none other than Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

Johnson frets that the Senate’s fingerprints could doom his chamber’s bill. He implores senators to “fine tune this product as little as possible.” The speaker told Punchbowl that guiding Thursday’s legislation through the House was like “crossing over the Grand Canyon on a piece of dental floss.” Too many Senate amendments could snap that floss on final passage.

Trump sounds far more open to letting the Senate have its way with Johnson’s package.

“I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want,” Trump told journalists on Sunday. “It will go back to the House, and we’ll see if we can get them. In some cases, the changes may be something I’d agree with, to be honest.”

“We’ve had a very good response from the Senate,” Trump added, “and I don’t know how Democrats can’t vote for it.”

And yet Democrats won’t vote for it.

The president is kidding himself if he expects even one Democrat to support his A-No. 1 legislative priority, which makes permanent the Trump-45 tax cuts. The only thing that Democrats hate more than tax cuts is Trump himself. Their disdain for him is hot enough to melt the vaults of Fort Knox.

House Democrats turned 428 thumbs down on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, and if they had more thumbs handy, they likewise would have deployed them all. Senate Democrats will do the same, and there is no point whatsoever in Republicans wasting any time trying to rally their Democrat colleagues behind this bill. GOP senators would have better luck teaching lobsters to sing.

If the Senate’s version of this bill drifts too far from the House blueprint, the latter need not accept it as is.

A House-Senate conference committee (remember those?) would help both chambers settle their differences and adopt middle-ground language. If necessary, Trump is a master at patting enough backs and twisting enough arms to transform the One Big, Beautiful Bill into something giant and gorgeous before it reaches the Resolute Desk for his signature.

Until then, no more congressional vacations, and lots more late nights and weekend sessions until this whole thing is wrapped up. The economy needs a strong infusion of certainty already, and the American people have waited long enough for tax relief.

The sooner Donald Trump’s big, beautiful John Hancock is on this legislation, the better.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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