{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-will-democrats-finally-take-yes-for-an-answer-2/", "Thune: Will Democrats Finally Take Yes for an Answer?", "2026-09-29", "2026", "2026-09", "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 spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cI said a couple of weeks ago that we had a big, but limited, opportunity to get some really consequential things done.\n\n\u201cAnd unfortunately, it\u2019s been very shameful that the Democrats have decided to play politics rather than to work with us to do what I believe is really consequential legislation.\n\n\u201cAnd the two most recent examples of that are blocking getting on the Clarity Act \u2013 which was incredibly necessary for our financial services markets for digital assets, and they blocked it, even getting on it on the floor of the Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd then now we\u2019ve got them also not taking yes [for an answer] on permitting reform.\n\n\u201cWe have been litigating that for a long time, a tremendous amount of work gone into it by Chair Capito and Chair Lee and their Democrat counterparts on the committees of jurisdiction.\n\n\u201cAnd we had a bill which I thought was an incredibly strong bill.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats are not prepared to let us vote on that just yet.\n\n\u201cSo right now, I think this is, a lot of it\u2019s about election year politics, but it\u2019s not the first time this has happened.\n\n\u201cIf you think about the other things that they blocked just recently, the National Defense Authorization Act, the farm bill, FISA reauthorization \u2013 these are all bills that are critically important either to our national security or our economic security in this country.\n\n\u201cAnd in every circumstance, the Democrats have blocked us from consideration, even getting on those bills.\n\n\u201cSo that\u2019s where things are right now.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a political season, we all understand that.\n\n\u201cBut you would think that, on issues where you have broad bipartisan consensus and things that are really important to the future of this country, you would get some Democrats to work with you and cooperate.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, that hasn\u2019t been the case.\n\n\u201cBut there\u2019s still an opportunity.\n\n\u201cSo this week, we\u2019re going to allow the Democrats to have an opportunity to vote on legislation that has come over from the House.\n\n\u201cThe first of which is a photo ID law coupled with a ban on insider trading, something that\u2019s broadly supported by the American people, both issues, and also something that had big support coming out of the House of Representatives.\n\n\u201cAnd then secondly, on the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would prevent rate hikes on electricity costs for consumers around this country.\n\n\u201cBoth pieces of legislation strike at the very heart of issues that the American people care deeply about, passionately about \u2013 and we\u2019ll see if the Democrats are willing to take yes for an answer.\n\n\u201cBecause in the House of Representatives, the Ratepayer Protection Act passed 417-3 \u2013 417-3.\n\n\u201cHuge bipartisan support coming out of the House, and it ought to be something that should be a no-brainer here on the floor of the Senate.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to give the Democrats a chance tomorrow to vote on that, and let\u2019s hope they do the right thing, but we\u2019re going to see what they want to do.\u201d", 1, "2026-09-30T10:57:52Z", "2026-09-30T10:59:04Z"]], "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-will-democrats-finally-take-yes-for-an-answer-2/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.091753063723445, "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"}