Ben Ray Luján, Democratic Senator from New Mexico, talks with KC Counts about those who stand to be possibly disenfranchised by the SAVE Act and criticizes the administration over its handling of the Epstein files. Here is a transcript of their conversation. Time was limited to 10 minutes.
KC Counts:
I want to begin with something, and there's a lot of top of mind issues, but we're going to talk about a couple of them today, including the SAVE Act. Many Americans, a majority, don't have anything against the idea of showing an ID at the polling place, but they may not understand the nuances of what's involved with that through the SAVE Act. Can you give us a picture of that?
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Most certainly. So one, to be very clear, while my Republican colleagues are doing everything they can to try to sell a piece of legislation, by suggesting it is simply about showing voter ID, the SAVE Act is everything but that. Last week, President Trump said very clearly, out loud, to Republican colleagues, President Trump said something along the lines that if Republicans would pass the SAVE Act and send the legislation to him, it would guarantee Republican victories in the election, not just in November, but for the next 50 years. And so, there's no question as to what the grab is here. And this is about a political grab. This is about Republicans just covering their own behinds, if you will. That's who they're trying to save. What the result of this legislation would be is abundantly simple. As many as 69 million women across the country who have taken their spouse's name or changed their last name get thrown off the voter rolls. Many of them do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name. So that's one of the things that would happen here. Half of Americans, more than 140 million citizens who would be required to show some form of an ID like a passport do not have a valid passport and lower rates of passport possession, and low-income communities,in addition to questions associated with tribal ID. So think about all of our Native American brothers and sisters in New Mexico who have a tribal ID, but the tribal ID does not have a date on it. So that would not be included in a valid ID used toqualify to be able to register to vote or things of that nature. So, in the end, what this legislation is about is removing people from the voter rolls, even though they're American citizens. They're currently registered to vote. And then one of the other kickers to this is people would not even be notified if they were removed from the voter rolls. You can imagine the millions of people that may show up on Election Day to vote and be told, sorry, you're not registered to vote. So, there's just really no question as to what Republicans are trying to do here. This is no question, a power grab, a political grab. And what Donald Trump is trying to do right now, is saying this is about MAGA being able to win elections, not just in November, since they have lost the support, they being the president and the MAGA folks, have lost the support of so many voters across America.
KC Counts:
Well, I don't even myself have a valid passport at this time, but I do have - lucky that I've kept some records and my birth certificate, my marriage certificate, and I do believe my ID is a real ID. But many people don't have that real ID, but that would be what you would need, right, to re-register if you should have to.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Real ID, a birth certificate, a passport, are three of the examples of what would be needed to be able to submit to get registered to vote. And that would require you making a copy, getting that submitted into the file, leaving it in the file. And then there's still a question as to what would be done with those that may be looking at that document when you went to vote yourself. So, I mean, there's just - it's endless questions that have not been addressed here with the debate that is on the Senate floor right now.
KC Counts:
We believe that there's not quite enough support in the Senate for it. Is that what you are believing at this point?
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
So, President Trump was threatening John Thune, the Republican leader of the Senate, to do something that would only require 51 votes rather than the 60-vote threshold under current rules that's required. And John Thune has been clear in public to say that there are currently not enough Republican votes to get there. So, one of my colleagues out of Utah, Mike Lee, has said, “well, we're going to go to the floor. We're going to vote. We're going to force some procedures.” And so right now, there's a lot of debate and talking taking place on the Senate floor. And today, at least three of my Republican colleagues have said that they do not support what is currently being attempted in the Senate. That's Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. If they lose one more, and there are many others who have raised concerns, if my Republican colleagues lose one more Republican, the votes would not exist to even meet the 51-vote threshold.
KC Counts:
And so we're talking about, just to be clear, getting rid of the filibuster, right?
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
If, in fact, Republicans went the path of eliminating the filibuster and taking this to a 51-vote threshold, currently there are three Republicans that have said no, leaving at 50, requiring the vice president of the United States, JD Vance, to come to the floor and break the tie. Most of us believe that he would do that. If Republican senators lost one more Republican senator, they would not be able to meet the 51-vote threshold and therefore it would die. So currently there's no question the 60 votes do not exist. There's not even a majority of the Republicans that currently are in the Senate that support getting this done, which would require the vice president to come and break a tie. And many Republicans have been vocal about one concern or another as well, namely the fact that this bill would also eliminate vote by mail programs as well.
KC Counts:
Yeah, that was the one thing I wanted to touch on before we moved on. And that is anything else in the SAVE Act that you thinkthat people should know about.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Well, most certainly. I would say that the one issue that we've not
spoken about is the elimination of vote by mail. And think about what that means to voters that live in the most rural parts of America that live far away or that have other family obligations and responsibilities which don't allow them to go vote on Election Day. And President Trump has been trying to eliminate vote by mail from his first term. This is not a secret, and this legislation would actually eliminate that in all of America. Oddly enough, the elimination of vote by mail is why so many of my Republican colleagues that represent some of the most rural parts of America have voiced one concern or another.
KC Counts:
Let's move on now to the Epstein files. You recently had an opportunity to do a deep dive. What was revealed to you that you didn't know before?
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Well, when I went to the Department of Justice with one of my colleagues, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, he and I carried the legislation in the Senate ultimately that was passed. The House legislation was the version that went to the president, but we carry the Senate version of the legislation that required the release by the Department of Justice of all of these Epstein files. And so the Department of Justice, in my opinion, has been doing horrible job living up to the law, the legislation that that was passed and signed into law by the President of the United States and fully releasing the information that the legislation requires, number one. Number two, the Department of Justice has been absent in answering specific questions as to who the Department of Justice appointed to do the work. What direction did the Department of Justice give the people to do this work? Why were so many officials that were arguably public officials redacted in the first versions as well. Were they told to protect political names or not? And when I went to the Department of Justice and myself and Jeff Merkley were able to look at the files unredacted, it just was very clear to me that what I saw in the redacted versions, it was even more clear to me of the abuses that were taking place in New Mexico at Zorro Ranch and the connection from Florida and New York to New Mexico, whether it was the use of the private airstrip to get people in and out, people that were victims that were there at Zorro Ranch or others. So very concerning,what I saw. And I'm very encouraged by the fact that the leadership of the New Mexico legislature under Andrea Romero and the support of the governor, the work of our Attorney General, Raul Torres, whoboth have their own versions of investigations looking at Zorro files. And again, very concerning that based on the inquiries that were taking place in Florida and New York and decisions made in New Mexico that there was not a full investigation, I ask why, why was that canceled? Why was there not a full effort to get the answers to so many of these victims out in New Mexico as well? But just one concern after another that I saw when I was looking at the unredacted version of what was released to the American people in a redacted fashion.
KC Counts:
Can you confirm that, you know, the victims weren't just women and teenage girls, but children as young as toddler age, men as well?
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
What I can share is that the stories that we saw in the redacted version, that there's just more information following all of those stories. And all it takes is a simple search by anyone just to do a search for New Mexico through the Epstein documents that were redacted,or look for Zorro Ranch and you will see every instance that Zorro and New Mexico are mentioned. Those were the tools that I used when I actually went in to look at the unredacted versions were simple searches that allowed me to get the document numbers that correlate with Zorro Ranch and New Mexico. But there's just no question that the young people that were in New Mexico, young victims that were in New Mexico that were being flown around, whether it was on private jets or commercial flights. I mean, it's all there.
KC Counts:
U.S. Senator Ben Ray Lujan, thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to talk to us about these two very important issues. We appreciate it.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Thank you, KC. Thank you for having me today.
According to the Brennan Center, universal mail voting would be prohibited under the legislation, requiring voters in 8 states and Washington, D.C. to submit an application to vote by mail. It would not end all voting by mail, although President Trump has expressed his desire to end the practice.
