[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S4170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            SAVE America Act

  Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a bill that, at 
its core, asks for something almost embarrassingly simple: That the 
person registering to vote in an American election is actually an 
American citizen and that the person showing up to cast the ballot is 
actually who they say they are.
  The SAVE Act does not reinvent our elections. It does not add redtape 
for the sake of redtape. It asks for documentary proof of citizenship 
at registration and identification at the ballot box--the same basic 
verification we already accept without complaint when we board an 
airplane, open a bank account, or pick up a prescription.
  If we trust that system to protect a checking account, we should 
trust it enough to protect the vote. That is not extremism. That is 
common sense, and it is long past time this Chamber treated it that 
way.
  This past Saturday, I was riding in the Cheyenne Frontier Days parade 
alongside Senator Barrasso. Cheyenne is my hometown. It is the world's 
largest outdoor rodeo. And we have great parades--four of them--during 
the course of the week of the world's largest outdoor rodeo. It is an 
exceptional tradition in my hometown.
  Senator Barrasso and I are riding along the parade route, the same 
parade route Wyoming has watched for generations. And as we came down 
the street, I could hear it from my constituents over and over: Pass 
the SAVE Act, Senator. Pass the SAVE Act. Not once. Not from just one 
corner of the crowd, all along the parade route. That is not a talking 
point; that just happened last weekend. That is the people of Wyoming 
telling us what they want.
  So, I came home from that parade wondering if Wyoming was maybe a 
little ahead of the country on this.
  It turns out, Wyoming is right where the country already is. And it 
turns out these constituents aren't just in line with the people of 
Wyoming; they are in line with the country.
  A Gallup poll found 84 percent of U.S. adults favor requiring photo 
identification to vote. In that same poll, 83 percent--just one less--
support requiring proof of citizenship for new voter registrants. Mr. 
President, 83 percent. That includes 71 percent of self-identified 
Democrats and an overwhelming majority of Independents. In this town, 
we can't get 83 percent of anybody to agree on the weather.
  This is not controversial outside the walls of this building. It has 
simply become controversial inside them.
  Would we expect to go to Mexico or Canada and walk into an election 
booth and have them let us vote in their elections without an ID, 
without proving we're a Canadian citizen or a Mexican citizen? They 
would have nothing to do with the process that allowed a U.S. citizen 
to vote without identification in their elections. No country would.
  So is the opposition to this bill just another symptom of Trump 
derangement syndrome, where any policy this administration touches 
becomes reflexively toxic the moment it reaches this floor? Or do my 
colleagues across the aisle actually believe it is bad policy for only 
American citizens to decide American elections? Because, really, those 
are--as near as I can tell--the only two explanations on offer.
  The same is true of protecting girls' and women's sports. Gallup has 
found 69 percent of Americans believe athletes should compete on teams 
that match their biological sex. I am surprised it is not a higher 
number, but it is 69 percent. This is not a fringe position. It is the 
plainly stated view of most people in this country, arrived at through 
a basic, widely shared sense of fairness: That girls who train and 
compete deserve a level playing field where they can compete safely. 
They don't have to worry about a man who identifies as a woman or as a 
transperson spiking a volleyball so hard that it does brain damage and 
causes concussions and lifelong injury to a young high school 
athlete. We owe that to our female athletes.

  Wyoming didn't send me here to just spew political jargon, to play 
politics, because these things are simple; they are timeless; they are 
understood values. We can't bend and shape thousands of years of common 
sense with new, woke ideology. Wyoming sent me here to conduct myself 
in a manner that reflects their common sense, their values.
  So it is time to send the SAVE Act to President Trump's desk. I heard 
that on the parade route in Cheyenne, WY, last weekend, and I hear it 
on this floor. We need to pass the SAVE Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

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