It should be obvious even to the most obtuse Republican in the Senate that the Democrats will eventually regain another governing trifecta in Washington and will shortly thereafter nuke the legislative filibuster. They have openly pledged to do so in order to pass several pieces of controversial legislation, and would have done it already had it not been for contrarian Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema. Consequently, Senate Republicans should nuke the filibuster themselves if the Democrats try to shut down the government again on January 30, when the recently passed partial funding bill expires. Without the votes of non-citizens the Democrats can’t garner enough electoral support to recapture Congress or the White House. There are a number of reasons to do so while the GOP retains its thin congressional majority.Without the filibuster, for example, Senate Democrats would not be able to block passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which was passed by the House last April. The SAVE Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act — better known as the Motor Voter Law — by requiring states to obtain in-person documentary proof of citizenship before registering a person to vote in a federal election. The Democrats have used the filibuster to prevent Senate passage of this bill because they know requiring in-person proof of citizenship would deprive them of a core constituency. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) all but admits it in a statement released after the SAVE Act passed in the House. Congressional Republicans are pushing a proposal that would coerce states into instituting policies that would effectively prevent millions of American citizens from voting, stymie automatic voter registration and derail in-person voter registration drives. It is an outrage … We all support safe, transparent and secure elections. And countless studies have proved beyond a doubt that voter fraud is vanishingly rare. But Congressional Republicans want to disenfranchise millions of American citizens, seize control of our elections, and fan the flames of election skepticism and denialism. The “tell” in Schumer’s statement is the reference to automatic voter registration (AVR). As recently as ten years ago, AVR did not exist in the United States. If you wanted to vote in any election, it was necessary to visit a local agency in person, produce a valid form of identification and fill out registration paperwork. Then, in March of 2015, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) signed the first law in the nation providing for the automatic registration of voters using information from the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles. Upon implementation a year later, everyone obtaining or renewing a driver’s license or a state identification card in Oregon became a registered voter unless they retroactively opted out within 21 days. A decade later the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that every Democrat-dominated state plus the District of Columbia has passed and implemented AVR systems similar to the Oregon model. All of these states insist that their AVR systems are models of election integrity, but the objective data suggest otherwise. Oregon has been at this longer than any other state, yet its system was still registering non-citizens to vote as recently as the 2024 election cycle. Meanwhile, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review a case involving Pennsylvania’s refusal to release data showing how noncitizens were added to the Commonwealth’s voter rolls. Pennsylvania publicly admitted that, for decades, its Department of Motor Vehicles had allowed non-U.S. citizens to register to vote through the state’s “motor voter” system. According to the state’s own analysis, “approximately 100,000 registered voters may potentially be non-citizens or may have been non-citizens at some point in time” … PILF requested the records under the National Voter Registration Act’s public disclosure provision, which requires states to make list maintenance documents available for public inspection. Pennsylvania denied the request. All of which brings us back to the need for the SAVE Act and why the Democrats will continue to use the filibuster to ensure that it doesn’t get a floor vote in the Senate. Without the votes of non-citizens the Democrats can’t garner enough electoral support to recapture Congress or the White House. This means the SAVE Act is quite literally an existential threat to their party. Consequently, the Republicans should heed President Trump’s call to terminate the filibuster and pass the bill. As Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) put it early in November, “We KNOW Democrats will nuke the filibuster as soon as they’re able to solidify their grip on power. We should act first in order to pass laws that benefit the AMERICAN people.” Yet Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-N.D.) insists that there aren’t enough Republican votes in the upper chamber to eliminate the 60-vote threshold to achieve cloture and bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. The voters came out a year ago and gave the GOP a governing trifecta in the expectation that they would govern more effectively than the Democrats. If the Republicans in the Senate squander this opportunity to keep an obsolete relic of the 18th century like the filibuster on life support, they deserve to be consigned to a lengthy sojourn in the political wilderness. The voters will likely reward them accordingly. READ MORE from David Catron: The Marjorie Taylor Greene New Deal SCOTUS Must Stop Mail-In Voting Madness Virginia Wild Card: Turnout Among Black Voters