Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said “there aren’t anywhere close to the votes” needed to change the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow Republican-sponsored legislation to reform voter registration requirements to pass the upper chamber with fewer than 60 votes.

Thune on Tuesday dismissed the idea that Republicans might lower the procedural threshold for advancing the House-passed SAVE Act, which would require people to show passports or birth certificates as proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Thune said he supports passing federal law to require documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote, but he dismissed talk of changing the Senate rules to create a pathway to passing the legislation, which Democrats strongly oppose.

Thune pledged to protect the Senate’s filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to advance legislation, when he ran for Senate majority leader in 2024.

He said his position is broadly supported within the Senate Republican Conference.

“It’s not just me not being willing to do it. There aren’t anywhere close to the votes, not even close, to nuking the filibuster,” he said of a proposal to lower the threshold for advancing legislation to a simple majority by voting along partisan lines to establish new precedent.

Alexander Bolton, The Hill