Why my head hurts: This exchange just happened Thursday on the Senate floor.

[634-5789]

Cornyn: “I don’t understand how the SAVE Act disenfranchises voters.”

Durbin: “Happy to explain. Driver’s licenses don’t qualify under the bill. 50% of Americans don’t have passports.”
Cornyn: “Why not just amend it?”

Durbin: “When’s the last time the Senate actually amended a bill?”

Silence.

The SAVE Act requires passport-level documentation to register to vote.

50% of Americans don’t have a passport.

The people least likely to have passports: the elderly, the poor, rural Americans, young first-time voters.

The people most likely to have passports: wealthy Americans.

This is not voter protection. This is voter selection.

And when a senator suggested fixing it — his own colleague couldn’t name the last time the Senate amended anything.

That’s the Senate in 2026.

My thanks to Brian Allen
@allenanalysis

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Not to forget that:

1. The average price of a passport is $135 and closer to $200 if you're in a hurry.

2. Rubio changed the passports so that you can't be transgendered. Either male or female.

3. It takes forever to get your passport. With hundreds of thousands, millions, applying simultaneously, there's a good chance that a lot of voters won't get them by November.

4. Between gas and the tariffs, who has $135 to dedicate for an otherwise free, constitutional right to vote?

[sop]

5. It's a poll tax.

"Poll taxes are unconstitutional and illegal in the United States for all federal, state, and local elections. The 24th Amendment, ratified in January 1964, banned them for federal elections, and the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional for state/local elections in the 1966 case Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections."

[no_hypocrisy]

7. A poll tax that also has to be renewed every ten years, I believe.

[Mr.Bee]

24. I don't have a passport

and I vote by mail.
This man will do anything to stay out of prison
including starting distraction wars.

[Chasstev365]

2. Great Catch!

Counter point: Americans who have a passport have traveled abroad and tend to be educated. They might be more likely to see when a democracy is slipping away.

Could the SAVE ACT actually eliminate more uneducated Trump voters from being able to vote?

Of course, it should be moot because under the Constitution, states run their own elections, but with this Supreme Court who knows what law is anymore.

[blubunyip]

12. Many "uneducated"

and non-travelers are smart. This is not the way to handle those who aren't. Snobby elitist point of view that divides us further.

One citizen = one vote.

Address the propaganda machine and all the other fascist mechanisms at work in this corrupt nation.

[BannonsLiver]

26. Theoretically yes

In a lot of maga states, including the shit hole where I reside, the percentage of the population holding a passport is around 15-20 percent.

[mwmisses4289]

3. Ugh. Not at all shocked it's Cornyn.

Hopefully, come November, texas voters will do the right thing and retire this dude and send someone better in his place.

[Squaredeal]

4. It would disenfranchise married women the most.

Those who took the name of their husband, since it doesn’t match their birth certificate. Presentation of a valid marriage certificate, even if one is divorced but kept the ex’s last name, I assume, would be required to help prove citizenship.
Would presentation of adoption records be required to prove citizenship for those individuals who had a different name at birth, even in cases where birth records are sealed by a court?
There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions about the bill, not including the Constitutional challenge that elections are a state, not a federal right.

[EuterpeThelo]

17. Infuriating

My last name is hyphenated to honor my life partner of 20+ years who I lost to COVID thanks to the weaponized incompetence of this orange sack of oozing, toxic pus. For personal reasons, we never legally married but we did do a handfasting, which, in my eyes, is equally if not even more valid as it doesn't have the expiration date of "til death" attached. Changing my name was in accordance with his wishes. He's been gone almost six years and I still feel a swell of pride every time I write my name, because it was a gift he gave to me (while also retaining same from my dad, whom I also loved fiercely). No way am I dishonoring him by giving that up.

My family has been in the U.S. since 1624 if these jagoffs want to get into "citizenship."

[Attilatheblond]

34. Spot on! Since more than a couple GOP pols and influencers suggested women should not be able to vote

This 'SAVE' act will disenfranchise millions of women while not putting pols who want the 19th Amendment overturned at risk of having their asses handed to them in an election. It would give also give Trump & other rapists in the Epstein some protection from millions of pissed off women voters who want them GONE from government.

The SAVE act only saves Trump from what he so richly deserves while punishing women for wanting to participate in the governance that impacts them, probably more than it impacts men.

[Lonestarblue]

6. This bill is clearly intended to disenfranchise women and minorities since fewer of them vote for Republicans.

[LymphocyteLover]

10. it will also disenfranchise trans people

[twodogsbarking]

8. I got my passport a year ago. Saw the brown stuff ready to hit the fan.

[uncle ray]

18. mine arrived last week. processing times are currently very quick, FWIW.

[twodogsbarking]

19. Mine too a bit longer. I had to get a new birth certificate. The old ones did not name your parents like the new ones.

They already had the information but rules is rules.

[uncle ray]

30. i prepared and got a fresh new copy, only to be told the old one was actually better!

i was worried the seal was barely visible. the nice postal worker said that a new copy would raise more suspicion. whatever, minor inconvenience.

[Easterncedar]

9. Mainers, heads up! Susan Collins appears to waver on support for the act,

According to a reply she sent to a voter friend who contacted her about it. Time to push is now! Call, write and do it again, please!

[efhmc]

13. Susan Collins wavering? Thanks for my first laugh of the day.

[Easterncedar]

23. Hah! Yeah, but her reelection is not so sure this time

She might tip over our way if it serves her self-serving purposes. I know she isn't going to stand on principle!!

[LymphocyteLover]

11. Cornyn is even dumber than I thought. JFC

[ananda]

14. I kinda thought he was being deliberately dumb...

sucking up to Trump.

[Scalded Nun]

15. Cornyn is worthless garbage

Even more desperate now to get his lips closest to Trump's ass to curry favor for his runoff with another Texas idiot Paxton.

He seems to show up in about every pic with Senators, but does not know or do shit for the state or its citizens.

A major reason why we left the state. It is all about self-preservation, the grift, and the power.

They have been in complete power and doing this for 40 years now...and they keep pointing the finger at the dems for why nothing ever improves.

[CaptainTruth]

16. It seems like this would disenfranchise more Republican voters.

Think of all the rural voters who vote GOP, I'll bet the great majority don't have passports.

I've known several Fox-watching straight-R voters who live just a town or two away from where they grew up & have hardly made it out of their state much less the country. Why would they have passports?

[ScratchCat]

20. It doesn't require a passport to vote

I don't support the SAVE Act, but I don't know where some people are getting this stuff. It would be automatically struck down at the first legal challenge which would happen the day after it was signed into law if it required such a thing.

As long as you had to provide a birth certificate to renew/get your drivers license, that suffices any requirement here. Most people have the new, conforming ID. Durbin is simply incorrect about driver's licenses not qualifying here. This law would not require every American to acquire a passport to vote in the 2026 or 2028 elections. Again, if it did, it would be automatically struck down.

[mcar]

25. That is incorrect

Only 5 states accept the new DLs as proof of citizenship.

[usonian]

21. TLDR: Jim Crow Must Go.

[patphil]

22. From what I have read, this bill will disenfrancise both republicans and Democrats.

If a passport is part of the requirement, then poor, rural American citizens may be intentionally discriminated against. Farmers in particular may never have traveled outside the country, so they never saw a need for one.
Also the elderly who may have had a passport at one time, but no longer travel and have let it lapse. My wife and I are in that group, and I've just got my documents for passport renewal together. We'll be starting the process soon.

I haven't gotten any in-depth determination as to which party will lose the most votes, but that may not be the point of it. Perhaps it's the start of a long term restructuring of the voting process that will eventually trim the roles down to a much smaller percentage of citizens being allowed to vote. The smaller the number, the easier it is to control the outcome.

[Joinfortmill]

36. Renewed my passport late last year. Very quick

[patphil]

38. I was told yesterday by my tax preparer that AAA helps with the process.

[TBF]

27. Talarico's gonna mop up the floor with Cornyn ... nt

[maxsolomon]

37. LOL sure. In Texas.

Fun dayn moyl zu Got's oyem.

[Timewas]

28. About 50%

Approximately 45–51% of Americans hold a valid passport, with over 170 million active passports in circulation as of 2024–2025. This represents a significant increase from the 1990s, when only about 4–10% held one. Ownership is highest among young adults (53%) and college-educated individuals

So that stops a pretty large portion fo population from voting,ad in the disenfranchising of married women who cannot find both their birth certs. and wedding licenses it does a lot of damage...

[SidneyR]

29. Some educated people also don't have passports.

Ph.D. here, risen from trailer trash to a graduate degree. That required a ton of work and debt. Paid off student loans at the age of 63. I could never afford to travel. And I am terrified of flying. So no, I have no passport.

[Seinan Sensei]

31. The problem (ostensibly) is voter fraud

Never forget. Always remember -- this is a problem that is NOT a problem

WAPO estimated there were 31 fraudulent votes out of 3 billion (with a "B" ) votes
Fifth Circuit in Texas found 2 convictions of voter fraud out of 2 million votes
Then-Gov Rick Scott went looking for fraud (!) and found 85 non-citizen registrants out of 12 million voters
Iowa -- 27 out of 1.6 million
Kansas - 14 out of 84 million

VOTER-FRAUD IS NOT A PROBLEM

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-voter-fraud-myth

[LetMyPeopleVote]

32. Cornyn is an idiot

Link to tweet

[Jimvanhise]

33. ISN'T PAYING A FEE IN ORDER TO VOTE ILLEGAL?

Having to buy a passport in order to qualify to vote would invalidate the Save Act.

[Joinfortmill]

35. Jeezus. What a goddamn mess.

[alimbalt]

39. Congress is ...

... as useful as men's nipples.

[Gum Logger]

40. Voting should be mandatory. $40 lazy tax going to the inside the beltway constitutional officer yacht club