House conservatives’ decision to grind the chamber to a halt in an effort to force Senate action on the SAVE America Act is drawing sharp backlash from Republicans across the conference, who say the strategy is accomplishing little beyond derailing their own agenda.
House Republicans were forced to punt several votes this week after the conservative splinter group, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., used a routine procedural hurdle teeing up legislation as leverage to force the Senate to consider the stalled election bill.
The tactic appeared to fall flat after the Senate left Washington for a planned recess Wednesday while the House floor remained at a standstill, leaving SAVE no closer to passage.
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“It’s a mess,” Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital. “We have to be able to continue to function.”
“It’s just creating more inaction and more reasons for people to have a bad taste in their mouth about the U.S. House,” he continued, referring to the legislative paralysis.
Even after President Donald Trump urged the group to stand down in a Truth Social post Thursday after meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., it’s unclear whether his directive to stop “grandstanding” will be enough to reopen the House floor when lawmakers return Monday.
Luna, a Trump ally, is pushing for the SAVE America Act to be attached to the annual defense policy bill expected to receive a vote in the House next week.
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Pairing the measures could jeopardize consideration of the must-pass defense bill and would likely doom its chances in the Senate, where Republican leadership insists the votes aren’t there to pass SAVE.
“Using floor time as a pressure campaign on the Senate is a strategy that has not moved the needle, and right now it is costing us momentum on our own agenda,” a senior Republican aide told Fox News Digital. “We can keep making the case for SAVE without bringing the House to a grinding halt in the process.”
“This is a longstanding issue we’ve had with members who don’t function as a team,” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “We win when we work and function as a team, and it’s imperative for us to be able to keep the majority.”
Asked about conservative hardliners’ vow to oppose all legislation in protest of SAVE, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., said, “I don’t know why they would want to take their own initiatives off the table, because there’s a math problem in the Senate.”
The standoff has exposed a growing divide among House Republicans over what should take priority before the fast-approaching midterms: conservatives who see SAVE as the conference’s top objective despite the House having already passed multiple versions of the bill, and a larger bloc of Republicans who argue the party can’t afford to sideline the rest of its agenda.
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With fewer than 30 scheduled legislative days in the House left before the midterms, both camps have little time to spare.
Meanwhile, Republican leadership is racing to advance government funding bills, renew a lapsed surveillance program targeting foreigners overseas, and assemble a third party-line megabill that could incorporate hundreds of millions of dollars in defense spending requested by the Pentagon.
“We should be spending every bit of energy we have building it,” the senior GOP aide told Fox News Digital, referring to the third budget reconciliation bill.
The package has struggled to get off the ground due to GOP divisions over whether to include elements of SAVE and what spending cuts would pay for the legislation, among other sticking points.
But some conservatives, including several who will not be returning next Congress, argued SAVE should take priority over everything else.
“I personally think we should not have any more legislation until the Senate comes back in session,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said Thursday.
“What is happening in the U.S. Senate is laziness, and quite frankly, it’s disgusting,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said Thursday. “They need to come back. They need to pass this legislation.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have repeatedly dismissed the criticism as misguided. And the Senate GOP has voted on the SAVE America Act, and several variations of it a handful of times without success.
Nor has the House passed Trump’s version of the legislation, which would add mail-in voting restrictions, prohibit men in women’s sports and ban child sex change procedures.
“Why is the House blaming the Senate for not passing the SAVE America Act when they themselves have never voted on the president’s version of SAVE?” a Senate GOP aide told Fox News Digital. “Instead of being obsessed with a chamber they don’t serve in, the House Freedom Caucus should be focused on passing the president’s agenda instead of standing in his way.”
Amid GOP infighting, some Democrats are boasting that they have governed more effectively from the minority.
“It feels like we’re passing more with the discharge approach than they’re doing with regular legislation,” Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., told Fox News Digital. “They really ought to be able to manage it better than this.”