Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman broke with Democratic Party leadership this week, signaling his support for voter identification laws, saying he does not view showing ID to vote as unreasonable.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and almost all Senate Democrats have turned down the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This bill, which would protect the integrity of elections, passed the House earlier this week.
Schumer has called the bill “Jim Crow 2.0” because he thinks it would keep people from voting instead of making elections safer. But Fetterman, who has repeatedly disagreed with his party’s messages and positions, pushed back against Schumer’s framing of the bill.
“I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy. But that’s part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now. And I don’t call people names or imply that it’s something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow,” Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany.
The bill would require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, require proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote, and mandate states remove non-citizens from voter rolls.
However, momentum is building among Republicans.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, became the 50th member of the conference to back the legislation. But Senate Democrats have all but guaranteed its demise in the upper chamber, via the filibuster.
Fetterman would not say whether he supports the bill outright. However, he noted that “84% of Americans have no problem with presenting IDs to vote.”
“So it’s not like a radical idea,” Fetterman said. “It’s not something — and there already are many states that show basic IDs. So that’s where we are in the Senate.”
Even if Fetterman votes for the bill on the floor, it probably won’t pass unless there are bigger changes to the way things are done.
Right now, there aren’t enough votes to get past the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster limit.
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Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, are pressing for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—such as a birth certificate or passport—to register to vote in federal elections.
Trump has called on Senate Republicans to resurrect the “standing filibuster,” an older, more grueling procedure that forces senators to physically speak on the floor to block legislation, rather than rely on the modern “silent” version that stalls bills without debate.
“America’s elections are rigged, stolen, and a laughingstock all over the world,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a country any longer.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the GOP is weighing whether to adopt the tactic, but emphasized that no final decision has been made.
Thune said such a procedural change would demand significant time on the Senate floor, limiting bandwidth for other priorities such as the farm bill, artificial intelligence legislation, and infrastructure funding.
Fetterman also linked the debate over election integrity to the ongoing fight over border enforcement, saying he wants to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security remains funded and focused on deporting criminal aliens.
“Hopefully we don’t have to pay the TSA people and everyone securing our border and focus on deporting those kinds of criminals wherever they are,” he said. “I never want to vote to shut our government down again.”
Although Fetterman reiterated that he does not support the SAVE Act itself, his acknowledgment that voter ID is reasonable marks a significant cultural shift within the Democratic Party.
Polls show the issue enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support.
A 2025 Quantus Insights survey found that 74 percent of Americans—including 61 percent of Democrats—support requiring photo identification to vote.
President Trump has maintained that securing elections through voter ID, proof of citizenship, and transparent counting procedures is essential to restoring confidence in the system. “Elections should be simple, secure, and transparent,” he said recently. “That vision doesn’t threaten democracy—it protects it.”
