Anna Paulina Luna will support funding package after Senate promise to consider election bill

U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has agreed to support a funding plan in the House after the Senate agreed to hear election legislation.

Following a meeting in the White House, the Pinellas Republican said she would abandon plans Tuesday to hold up passage of a budget. That could mean an end is near for a partial government shutdown that began over the weekend.

Luna previously said she wanted the Senate to take up the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (HR 22) before the House agrees to a budget deal passed in the Senate last week. She and other holdouts met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday evening, where she said a commitment was obtained for Senate Majority Leader John Thune to end a filibuster rule and secure a path to the floor for the bill.

“After speaking with many senators, as well as directly with POTUS, the pathway forward is through the standing filibuster. This would effectively keep the government open while allowing Republican senators to break through the ‘zombie’ filibuster and put the SAVE America Act up for a vote on the Senate floor,” Luna posted on X.

“The standing filibuster is not common parliamentary procedure, but it is one of the only mechanisms available to go around senators who want to block voter ID. Leader John Thune, we are very pleased that you are discussing the standing filibuster, and we believe you will go down in history if this is pulled off as one of the best leaders the Senate has ever had. Voter ID is a must, and the ball is now in your court.”

Senate rules allow members to simply declare a filibuster without actually speaking. It can only be overcome if 60 members vote to invoke cloture. That has been controversial in the House, which requires only a simple majority to pass legislation.

The idea as outlined by Luna would mean bringing legislation to the floor and allowing a traditional filibuster where members could stall floor actions only as long as speakers could sustain a speech.

The House passed the SAVE Act in April on a 220-208 vote.

Thune in a press conference at the Capitol separately said he wanted to pass the SAVE Act as well, but that a new version was still working through the process.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, announced the introduction last month of the SAVE America Act. In addition to putting citizenship requirements for voting, it would impose requirements to present photo ID before voting. That bill, referenced by Luna, would also need to return to the lower chamber to pass, as it differs substantively from the House-passed SAVE Act.

“At some point we’ll have that vote. I’m for it,” Thune said. “I think most of our colleagues in the Senate are.”

It remains unclear if the bill imposing national election requirements can pass in the Senate even on a simple majority.

Outside the White House, Luna told reporters she intends to support passing the funding bill in the House based on assurances from Thune that the bill would be brought to a vote.