In Misrepresenting Support for the SAVE Act, Republicans Expose Their Hypocrisy

One of the main arguments Republicans use to make the case for why Congress should pass the “SAVE America Act” is that 80 percent of Americans support the notion that voters should show an ID when they want to cast their ballots.

For example, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) took to the floor last week to make that point in front of a nice prop.

“My friends, if an ‘80–20’ issue such as this can not get 60 votes in our 100-person chamber, something is amiss,” he said.

It is an argument that you hear over and over from Republicans who hope the SAVE America Act passes to give them a chance to not totally get wiped out in the midterms.

On some level, this line of reasoning for why Congress should pass the legislation makes sense.

Not because it is a good argument but rather because there is otherwise no good reason to support a law that bans something that is already illegal and doesn’t happen all that often.

However, it is a dubious claim because the legislation doesn’t simply require voters to show any kind of government-issued ID at the polls but rather a form of ID that provides a proof of citizenship. Most driver’s licenses, for example, don’t.

Therefore, to find out if Americans support the bill, pollsters would have to ask whether they are in favor of showing their birth certificate when registering to vote or their passports when they want to cast their ballots.

And that would highlight one of the main problems of the legislation, which is that it requires documents millions of Americans don’t have access to.

But, for the sake of this column, let’s assume it is a valid argument to say, “Since 80 percent of Americans support this issue, Congress should pass it.”

In that case, we have some suggestions for the GOP-led Congress.

For example, 92 percent of Americans think that ICE agents should wear body cams. Oddly enough, not a single Republican has signed on as a cosponsor of legislation that would require them to do just that.

Polls also show that even Republicans favor universal background checks for gun purchases by a wide margin. Overall, the support for such laws routinely polls above 80-90 percent. To their credit, two Republican lawmakers have signed on to H.R. 18 – The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2025.

An overwhelming number of Americans, more than the number who support showing any ID at the polling place (which, as we know, isn’t what the SAVE America Act would require of them), also support legalizing abortion if the health of the mother is seriously endangered, in case of rape or incest, and if a fetal abnormality would prevent the baby from surviving outside the womb.

And yet, Republicans across the country are enacting ever more draconian laws punishing women and health care providers for having and performing abortions, many of them in states with no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

More than 80 percent of Americans are also concerned about money in politics, and only slightly fewer about the outsize influence rich people have on elections. However, the GOP has been standing in the way of meaningful campaign finance reform for decades even though the people are evidently clamoring for it.

Here is another good one: Before Republicans voted to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, more than 80 percent of Americans opposed such cuts. And 84 percent want Medicare to be expanded to cover dental, vision, and hearing coverage.

Also, more than 80 percent of people would like the US to follow the example of its peer nations and require employers to provide paid sick leave. Guess who is standing in the way of that happening.

You want more?

Here are a few other things that attract more than 80 percent of bipartisan support but that aren’t getting done (usually because GOP lawmakers are blocking them): Establishing term limits for members of Congress, creating a federal digital-privacy bill of rights, banning companies found guilty of wage theft from getting government contracts, and requiring presidential candidates to take cognitive exams and disclose the results.

So, apart from lying about what is in the SAVE America Act and misrepresenting the support it has, Republicans should pipe down about popular legislation not getting passed because, in most cases, they are the reason why it doesn’t.