South Dakota Republican delegates rejected a push to censure Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) over the stalled SAVE America Act, exposing a fight within the GOP over how far the party should go to force through sweeping new voting restrictions.

South Dakota Republicans voted down a proposed censure of Thune at the state party convention Friday after a resolution accused him of blocking President Donald Trump’s election agenda. 

The measure had advanced out of the party’s Resolutions Committee, but failed before the full convention.

The resolution targeted Thune for what it called “his failure in regards to the SAVE America Act,” a Republican-backed bill that would impose strict proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements to vote. 

Voting rights advocates have warned the bill could block millions of eligible Americans from registering, especially people who do not have easy access to passports, birth certificates or documents matching their current names.

Trump has sharply escalated pressure on Republicans to pass the bill. This week, he abruptly canceled a planned signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing affordability bill, tying the unrelated legislation to his demand that Congress first pass the SAVE America Act.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump wrote.

The censure push reflects growing anger among Trump allies who want Senate Republicans to change or bypass filibuster rules to pass the bill. A filibuster is a Senate procedure that usually requires 60 votes to move most legislation forward. Republicans do not have those votes.

“We don’t have the votes, either to proceed to a talking filibuster nor to sustain one if we got one,” Thune said last week. “That’s just a function of math. There isn’t anything I can do about that.”

For pro-democracy advocates, the fight is not simply about Thune. It is about a broader Republican effort to turn Trump’s election denialism into federal policy. Noncitizen voting is already illegal and exceedingly rare. 

But the SAVE America Act would use that false crisis to create new barriers for eligible voters.

The South Dakota vote shows the limits of MAGA pressure even in a deep-red state. Delegates were willing to debate punishing their own Senate majority leader, but ultimately rejected escalating the internal fight.

Still, the episode underscores how central voting restrictions have become to the Republican agenda ahead of the midterms.

Seventeen Republican attorneys general, including South Dakota’s, have sued California over a state law that requires plastic packaging producers to move away from single-use plastics, alleging that the law will raise costs for consumers across the country.

Led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, the

complaint

filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California challenges California’s Plastics Act. Under the law, which took effect May 1, plastic packaging producers

must reduce single-use plastic

by 25% and ensure all packaging is recyclable or compostable by 2032.

Joining Hilgers in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. They say the law is an attempt by California “to impose its own policy preferences on the entire nation.”

The law “will cause steep and persistent price increases” on products used daily by consumers in other states, the plaintiffs argue.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said in a news release that the California law “imposes unreasonable, burdensome requirements on businesses and consumers nationwide.”

The attorneys general also assert that the law violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by interfering with interstate commerce, and that it improperly extends regulatory authority to a private organization. California appointed a nonprofit, the Circular Action Alliance, to help develop, administer and implement the law.

“Once again, California is trying to enact a policy that negatively impacts the rest of the country. If California goes unchecked, consumers will be forced to pay more for basic necessities,” Hilgers said in a news release. “Nebraska is continuing to fight for consumers against California’s overreach.”

Environmental advocacy groups also

sued

California earlier this month, alleging the new regulations “fall short” in meeting the state’s aims of reducing plastic packaging, and that they contain loopholes for producers.

— This story was originally published on southdakotasearchlight.com.

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