{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7A505692-19E4-4883-8A32-1D0E08153535", "Thune: Schumer Shutdown Day 28", "2025-10-28", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Clickhereto 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, this is a quote: \u2018The path forward for Congress is clear: Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, that is from the president of the American Federation of Government Employees \u2013 a labor union, I would add, most often aligned with Democrats.\n\n\u201cBut this is what AFGE\u2019s president says, and I quote, \u2018It\u2019s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, I couldn\u2019t have said it better myself.\n\n\u201cAnd actually, I\u2019ve been saying that for about a month now.\n\n\u201cBut far-left activists wanted a showdown with President Trump.\n\n\u201cAnd so Democrats shut down the government and have forced hardworking Americans to live in uncertainty for four weeks \u2013 four weeks and counting.\n\n\u201cAnd even as nutrition programs are running out of money and federal workers are lining up at food banks, Democrats continue to reject every opportunity to end the shutdown or mitigate its pain.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve now blocked a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution 12 times.\n\n\u201cTwelve times, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cA clean resolution, sitting right there, to open up the government.\n\n\u201cGet everybody paid.\n\n\u201cGet federal employees back to work.\n\n\u201cThat thing sitting at the desk that funds the government doesn\u2019t have a single new Republican policy in it.\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a single partisan policy rider.\n\n\u201cIt simply extends current government funding.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats have said no to that, now, 12 times.\n\n\u201cWe offered them a chance to continue the bipartisan appropriations process starting with the defense appropriations bill \u2013 a bill that passed out of the committee by a big bipartisan vote of 26-3.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats said no to that, too \u2013 they didn\u2019t want to lose leverage in the shutdown.\n\n\u201cThen, last week, we offered up a bill to pay any federal employee who is working during the shutdown \u2013 including everybody here.\n\n\u201cAnd, once again, Democrats said no.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I don\u2019t know what Democrats are holding out for.\n\n\u201cDo Democrats think that we\u2019re suddenly going to vote for their partisan CR \u2013 which, by the way, would spend an additional $1.5 trillion to keep the government open until the end of this week?\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s their alternative.\n\n\u201c$1.5 trillion to keep the government open until Friday \u2013 that\u2019s their alternative.\n\n\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t pass here, it can\u2019t pass in the House, and it wouldn\u2019t be signed into law by the president.\n\n\u201cOur bill, on the other hand, as I said, has passed the House a month ago, has been sitting here for an entire month, and would be signed by the president immediately, to reopen the government.\n\n\u201cI have to say, Mr. President, this wasn\u2019t my plan for the month of October.\n\n\u201cA government shutdown may have been what Democrats had in mind \u2013 to show the far left that they\u2019re fighting President Trump and to get some cheers at the No Kings rally.\n\n\u201cBut that wasn\u2019t my plan.\n\n\u201cMy plan was to get the government funded with as little drama as possible.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why Republicans put forward a clean continuing resolution \u2013 no partisan policies, nothing new.\n\n\u201cWho could possibly have a problem with that?\n\n\u201cIt would give us more time to continue progress on full-year appropriations bills \u2013 the way we\u2019re supposed to fund the government.\n\n\u201cI realize that would be out of the ordinary given the past few years under the Democrat majority and Leader Schumer.\n\n\u201cBut I was clear from the day I took office that I wanted to do things differently around here.\n\n\u201cMy goal was to have an open process conducted through regular order \u2013 something that I think is in the best interest of this institution and of all senators, both sides of the aisle.\n\n\u201cAnd I know I was not alone in wanting an open process.\n\n\u201cAnd until Democrats derailed everything, we had actually made a lot of progress on restoring regular order this year.\n\n\u201cWe passed three bipartisan appropriations bills before the August recess \u2013 the first time the Senate had done that since 2018.\n\n\u201cNow we\u2019re trying to go to conference on those three bills to reach a final agreement with the House.\n\n\u201cAnd the Democrats are blocking that.\n\n\u201cThat includes the agriculture bill that funds farm programs and nutrition assistance.\n\n\u201cThe military construction and VA bill that funds programs that veterans rely on.\n\n\u201cAs I said, we tried to bring up the defense appropriations bill this month \u2013 in hopes that if Democrats wouldn\u2019t agree to fund the entire government, we could at least make some progress on this critical aspect of it.\n\n\u201cAnd I told my Democrat colleagues that if we got on that bill, we would work to add other bipartisan bills.\n\n\u201cThe same way we did it just a few months ago.\n\n\u201cBut, once again, Democrats said no.\n\n\u201cNo to funding programs that they claim they support.\n\n\u201cNo to an open process.\n\n\u201cNo to bipartisanship.\n\n\u201cMr. President, time and again, we\u2019ve heard the Democrat leader lecture about bipartisanship.\n\n\u201cSo why is his caucus blocking progress on bipartisan appropriations bills?\n\n\u201cWhy are Democrats blocking bills that they helped write?\n\n\u201cIn the Appropriations Committee, where these bills are passing with overwhelming bipartisan margins \u2013 as I said, 26-3.\n\n\u201cWhy are they upending a bipartisan process that benefits all senators, on both sides of the aisle?\n\n\u201cThe senior senator from Hawaii said recently, and I quote, \u2018We still have hope for the appropriations process. There\u2019s a bipartisan desire to get something done and avoid a full-year [CR].\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, all I can say in response is that if Democrats still have hope for the appropriations process, they need to start acting like it.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re running out of time.\n\n\u201cAnd every day Democrats say no to reopening the government is another day lost.\n\n\u201cMr. President, we\u2019ve given Democrats a lot of opportunities to work in the best interest of the American people.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats seem more interested in getting the upper hand in their partisan games.\n\n\u201cThe number-two Democrat in the House said last week, and I quote, \u2018I mean, shutdowns are terrible and, of course, there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer. \u2026 But it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Of course there will be families that are going to suffer. \u2026 But it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat, from the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives.\n\n\u201cI think it describes where we\u2019re at, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cSure, people are suffering, but Democrats need their leverage.\n\n\u201cAre they serious?\n\n\u201cMr. President, I end as I began, quoting the president of a major labor union and a Democrat ally:\n\n\u201cThis is the quote: \u2018The path forward for Congress is clear: Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues.\u2019\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "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/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7A505692-19E4-4883-8A32-1D0E08153535"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7921720389276743, "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"}