House passes SAVE America Act anti-voting measures in budget reconciliation, stock trading bills

Key Points:

• The House narrowly approved a budget reconciliation framework including $10 billion in election-related grants aimed at encouraging states to adopt voter suppression measures similar to those in former President Trump's SAVE America Act, alongside funding for the Iran war and agricultural bailouts.
• The reconciliation process could allow Senate Republicans to bypass the filibuster, but the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that SAVE America provisions are not budgetary, and previous Senate votes showed insufficient Republican support, making enactment before the midterms unlikely.
• Senate Majority Leader John Thune has expressed reservations about the SAVE America proposal and prefers a different spending approach to pressure Democrats, while Speaker Mike Johnson faced internal GOP opposition over the budget framework’s lack of spending offsets.
• Time is critical as the government faces a potential shutdown at the end of September without a stopgap funding bill, compounded by ongoing costly military operations in Iran and limited legislative days due to upcoming recesses and the approaching midterm elections.
• Separately, the House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act banning congressional stock trading but attached a controversial voter ID requirement, which Democrats criticized as a partisan tactic to suppress voting rights; the bill passed largely along party lines with some Democratic support.