GOP Senator Susan Collins has announced she would vote for the SAVE Act, but claims she doesn’t believe it will come up for a vote because of the 60-vote filibuster rule in the Senate. This makes me absolutely positive the SAVE Act will never see the light of day, despite Trump’s attempts to get it passed.
What a lame position, typical of Collins, but also the only thing she can do at this point, given her poor position in the polls in the Maine race. It allows her to placate her GOP/MAGA base, but still avoid voting for this bill since it won’t come up for a vote. If it did, and she did vote for it, it could cost her the seat. She’s not exactly running away with the race right now, with polls showing her struggling to hold on. At this point, as the incumbent, she’s not doing well.
It’s obvious she has already talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about this and he’s agreed not to bring this up for a vote by killing the filibuster, or she would not have announced this. The GOP needs her to hold her seat, so they are going to give her whatever she wants.
Also, Thune knows that if they bring this up for a vote Democrats are going to make so much noise about how bad this law is, that it will put even more pressure on other races he needs to go his way. There is no way he wants to make people vote on this bill, it just creates a headache for him. With Trump a lame duck, and the current mistrust of everything Trump in the electorate right now, he has little incentive to kill the filibuster and let a vote on this happen.
I’d say, it’s already dead in the Senate.
