{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-on-the-senates-historic-confirmation-pace/", "Thune on the Senate\u2019s Historic Confirmation Pace", "2026-08-03", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cMr. President, I am pleased to say that the text of the continuing resolution has been released.\n\n\u201cIt is a strong, bipartisan piece of legislation, and I hope it will receive overwhelming support from both parties in the Senate.\n\n\u201cI am deeply grateful to Appropriations Chair Collins for her work to produce this legislation in consultation with members of both parties.\n\n\u201cAnd I also want to thank Senator Murray, vice-chair of the Appropriations Committee, for her efforts to get this done.\n\n\u201cI look forward to passing this bill in the next few days.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this week we\u2019ll move our fifth bloc of civilian nominees, which includes 74 well-qualified individuals.\n\n\u201cBy the end of the week, we will have cleared 95 percent of the civilian nominees who are eligible for floor consideration.\n\n\u201cNinety-five percent.\n\n\u201cAt this same point in President Trump\u2019s first term, there were 155 unconfirmed nominees on the calendar.\n\n\u201cThis year that number is on track to be about 10.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s the best confirmation track record in a quarter-century.\n\n\u201cAs I said, we will have confirmed 95 percent of the civilian nominees available for confirmation \u2013 meaning that we\u2019re doing better at this point than we were during President Obama\u2019s first term, President Trump\u2019s first term, or President Biden\u2019s.\n\n\u201cIt didn\u2019t always look like we\u2019d be able to achieve this, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cFrom the very beginning of his second term, Democrats met President Trump\u2019s nominees with a historic level of obstruction.\n\n\u201cAnd when I say historic, I do mean historic.\n\n\u201cUp until extremely recently, President Trump was the only president on record \u2013 the only, the only, president on record \u2013 not to have had any civilian nominees approved by unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cMr. President, that used to be the standard way of approving these nominations.\n\n\u201cDuring President George H.W. Bush\u2019s four years in office and President Clinton\u2019s first four years, both presidents had 98 percent of their civilian nominees \u2013 98 percent \u2013 confirmed through unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cPresident George W. Bush and President Obama both had 90 percent.\n\n\u201cAnd then we get to President Trump\u2019s first administration.\n\n\u201cDemocrats introduced an unprecedented new level of partisanship into the historically bipartisan confirmation process, forcing time-consuming votes on civilian nominees who would once have gone by unanimous consent or by voice vote.\n\n\u201cBut despite this, Mr. President, despite this new level of partisanship, both President Trump in his first term and President Biden had more than half of their nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cAnd then we get to President Trump\u2019s current administration.\n\n\u201cAs I said, until recently, he had not had one single nominee confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cZero.\n\n\u201cSo the fact that we\u2019re standing here today, Mr. President, with the civilian nominations calendar about to be essentially cleared, is pretty impressive.\n\n\u201cBut we\u2019ve been on a mission, Mr. President, to ensure that the president has his nominees in place so that he can do the job the American people elected him to do.\n\n\u201cThat included taking action to restore the Senate tradition of en bloc confirmation of largely noncontroversial nominees.\n\n\u201cAnd most of all, Mr. President, it included putting in the work.\n\n\u201cLots of work in committees.\n\n\u201cLots of work on the floor.\n\n\u201cAnd lots of votes.\n\n\u201cLots and lots of votes.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s paid off.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve confirmed 52 Article III judges.\n\n\u201cNinety-one percent of the U.S. attorneys that have made it out of committee this Congress.\n\n\u201cTwenty-three Cabinet members.\n\n\u201cAnd the list goes on.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019re going to continue to ensure that nominees are confirmed in a timely fashion, and that the president is able to have his team in place.\u201d", 1, "2026-08-04T07:35:49Z", "2026-08-04T07:37:27Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-on-the-senates-historic-confirmation-pace/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.666515901684761, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}