Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and the GOP's base want voter ID turned into law, but one barrier stands in the way: the political reality of the Senate. (Leon Neal/Getty Images; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Trump, who encouraged House Republicans to stand down from their do-or-die demands, renewed his call to pass voter ID legislation while signing the funding package into law on Tuesday.
"We should have voter ID, by the way," Trump said. "We should have a lot of the things that I think everybody wants to see. Who would not want voter ID? Only somebody that wants to cheat."
While several Senate Republicans support what the bill could accomplish, they acknowledge the legislation would die on the floor without a handful of Senate Democrats, who nearly unanimously despise the move.
"Democrats want to make it easy to cheat," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. "They don't want to do anything to secure elections."
The issue at hand, as has often been the case during Trump’s second term, is the 60-vote filibuster. The president has called on Senate Republicans to eviscerate it several times throughout the last year as the precarious threshold has time and again impeded his agenda.
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Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., talks to reporters as he leaves a Republican Caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on November 7, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Forcing the standing filibuster would come with its own ramifications in the Senate, given that the most valuable commodity in the upper chamber is floor time.
That's because of rules that guarantee any senator gets up to two speeches on a bill. That, coupled with the clock being reset by amendments to the bill, means that the Senate could effectively be paralyzed for months as Republicans chip away at Democratic opposition.
"There's always an opportunity cost," Thune said.
"At any time there's an amendment offered, and that amendment is tabled, it resets the clock," he continued. "The two-speech rule kicks in again. So let's say, you know, every Democrat senator talks for two hours. That's 940 hours on the floor."
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Still, some Republicans hope that the bill gets its moment in the Senate.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who was an original co-sponsor of the bill, told Fox News Digital that he hoped it got a chance on the floor and contended that it was a "very important thing to do."
"I don't know," Schmitt said. "I mean, we'll never know unless it happens."
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-trump-run-senate-roadblock-voter-id-bill