U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said the Democratic Party was at “war” with Republicans as he repeated his call to eliminate the filibuster.

“They’re part of a movement, they’re part of a party that is at war with us. This isn’t normal opposition,” the Oshkosh Republican told attendees of the state GOP state convention today. 

He said Senate Republicans needed to remove the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, legislation pushed by Republicans that would impose new voting restrictions and give the federal government new authority over state and federal elections. 

Repealing the filibuster is a common refrain for Johnson, who has frequently asserted that Republicans must preemptively dismantle the rule requiring a 60-vote majority to allow a vote on a bill before Democrats do so.

“They don’t respect the filibuster; they’re going to end it, so we’ve got to end it first,” Johnson said, asserting Democrats planned to pack the Supreme Court, admit Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states and turn America into a “one-party nation.”

As part of his attacks on Democrats, he sought to shift blame for the partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security and the fatal shooting of two Minneapolis residents by federal immigration agents in January. 

“You took those two individuals who they trained and encouraged to put them in harm’s way, and they died, and they used them as an excuse to defund ICE and CBP,” Johnson said. 

He closed his remarks with a call for party unity. Though he did not mention Chair Brian Schimming by name, members of the party’s executive committee in the past month have twice sought unsuccessfully to target Schimming, who has been criticized for the party’s poor fundraising and performances in off-year elections.