{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=B458FFB8-BFC1-432F-8BB1-C94C44185BFD", "Thune: Democrats Push Radical Federal Takeover Agenda", "2021-09-22", "2021", "2021-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about legislation that would restrict states\u2019 rights and grow the power of the federal government. Thune highlighted how Democrats\u2019 misguided proposals would put the federal government in charge of elections and eliminate states\u2019 pro-life laws.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, federal takeovers are being discussed in both the House and the Senate this week.\n\n\u201cThe Democrat leader has announced that the Senate will once again be taking up legislation to put the federal government \u2013 instead of states \u2013 in charge of elections.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, over in the House, representatives are expected to vote on legislation to eliminate essentially all state restrictions on abortion \u2013 no matter how modest or widely supported.\n\n\u201cSo what\u2019s up with the federal takeovers?\n\n\u201cWell, Democrats have been pushing election legislation \u2013 H.R. 1, the \u201cFor the People Act\u201d \u2013 for multiple years now.\n\n\u201cThis radical legislation would provide for a massive federal takeover of our electoral system, chill free speech, and turn the Federal Election Commission \u2013 the primary enforcer of election law in this country \u2013 into a partisan body, among other dangerous measures.\n\n\u201cAnd the reason for this radical legislation?\n\n\u201cWell, as even some Democrats have implicitly admitted, this legislation is designed to make it easier for Democrats to win elections.\n\n\u201cFast forward to last week.\n\n\u201cWith H.R. 1 unable to pass the Senate, some Democrats produced a modified version of this legislation \u2013 the For the People Act \u201cLite.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd while I appreciate their efforts, unfortunately, as the Republican leader said yesterday morning, \u201cThis latest version is only a compromise in the sense that the center-left compromised with the far left.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr as the Wall Street Journal editorial board put it this morning, \u201cCalling this bill slimmed down \u2026 is like touting your healthy choices after you order a Diet Coke with four Big Macs.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe For the People Act \u201cLite\u201d would still impose troubling new burdens on free speech.\n\n\u201cIt would still undermine state voter ID laws.\n\n\u201cIt would still spend taxpayer dollars on political campaigns.\n\n\u201cIt would still make it easier for those here illegally to vote.\n\n\u201cAnd, most of all, it would still put Washington, not state governments, in charge of elections \u2013 for no reason at all.\n\n\u201cMr. President, let\u2019s be clear.\n\n\u201cThere is absolutely zero reason to have the federal government start dictating states\u2019 election policies.\n\n\u201cZero reason.\n\n\u201cThere is no systemic problem with state election laws.\n\n\u201cAnd state election officials do not need Washington bureaucrats dictating how many days of early voting they should offer, or how they should manage mail-in ballots.\n\n\u201cThis bill, like its parent H.R. 1, is a solution in search of a crisis.\n\n\u201cStates have been doing a fine job running elections.\n\n\u201cEven Democrats have sort of had to admit that, given the huge voter turnout in the last election and the fact that Democrats won \u2013 albeit by the slimmest of margins.\n\n\u201cSo now that they can no longer tell us that our electoral system is broken, Democrats are telling us that we need election legislation like this because states are passing legislation that will \u2013 Democrats claim \u2013 threaten election access.\n\n\u201cBaloney.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s just another attempt to manufacture a crisis that will justify passing H.R. 1 or some variant.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are pushing election legislation for one simple reason: because they think it will improve their chances in future elections.\n\n\u201cThat is not a good reason to bring up election legislation.\n\n\u201cAnd I will continue to oppose any federal takeover of elections.\n\n\u201cSouth Dakota election officials are doing just fine without having their every move dictated by Washington bureaucrats.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, Mr. President, over in the House, members are expected to consider legislation that would, as I said, preempt virtually all state restrictions on abortion.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are calling the bill the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act.\n\n\u201cA more accurate name might be the Abortion on Demand Act, or we could simply refer to it as what it is \u2013 probably the most anti-life legislation ever to be considered in the United States Congress.\n\n\u201cThis bill would eliminate pretty much any and every abortion restriction in every state across the country.\n\n\u201cParental notification laws, informed consent laws \u2013 measures adopted by states and upheld by the Supreme Court \u2013 would disappear under Democrats\u2019 legislation.\n\n\u201cThe bill would also prevent states from restricting any particular method of abortion \u2013 no matter how barbaric the method.\n\n\u201cAnd the bill would make it essentially impossible to impose any meaningful restrictions at all on abortion in any stage of pregnancy, including after the point of fetal viability, when the baby can survive outside its mother.\n\n\u201cThe bill would also jeopardize doctors\u2019 and nurses\u2019 right to refuse to participate in abortions \u2013 and specifically prevent them from having recourse under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect their conscience rights.\n\n\u201cAnd it would put measures in place to ensure that any state pro-life law would face an uphill climb in the courtroom.\n\n\u201cIn short, this legislation would make abortion on demand, at any time, for essentially any reason, the law of the land.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I hope \u2013 I really hope \u2013 that during debate on this measure, Democrats are not going to pretend that their proposed abortion law somehow represents the prevailing sentiment of the country.\n\n\u201cBecause it doesn\u2019t.\n\n\u201cThe vast majority of Americans believe that there should be at least some restrictions on abortion.\n\n\u201cGallup has been polling on abortion for decades, and in all that time the percentage of Americans who believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance has always remained under 35 percent.\n\n\u201cIn fact, for most of the past several decades that number has remained squarely under 30 percent.\n\n\u201cA strong majority of Americans support at least some restrictions on abortion.\n\n\u201cFurthermore, an Associated Press poll from this June found that 65 percent of Americans believe that abortion should generally be illegal in the second trimester \u2013 or from about 13 weeks of pregnancy \u2013 while a whopping 80 percent of Americans believe that abortion should generally be illegal in the third trimester.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s not surprising.\n\n\u201cAmericans aren\u2019t dumb, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cAnd thanks to ultrasounds and scientific advances and plain old common sense, they know just how ridiculous it is to claim that unborn children are just blobs of tissue.\n\n\u201cMost people are well aware that an unborn baby with its own heartbeat and fingers and toes and DNA is in fact not a blob of tissue, but a human being.\n\n\u201cAnd most people believe that human beings deserve to be protected.\n\n\u201cEven when they\u2019re small and weak and vulnerable.\n\n\u201cEspecially when they\u2019re small and weak and vulnerable.\n\n\u201cAnd so it doesn\u2019t surprise me in the least that 80 percent of the American people think abortion should generally be illegal in the third trimester.\n\n\u201cBecause I can\u2019t imagine anyone being comfortable with the idea of killing a baby who is not only, like any unborn baby, a human being worthy of protection, but is actually old enough to survive outside his or her mother.\n\n\u201cSo, Mr. President, I really, really hope that Democrats are not going to pretend that they\u2019re representing the American people with this appalling legislation.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re not representing the American people.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re representing the radical abortion lobby.\n\n\u201cAnd the radical abortion lobby is terrified that, as it well knows, it does not have a majority of the American people on its side.\n\n\u201cAnd so it\u2019s relying on its Democrat allies to push for perhaps the most radical pro-abortion legislation ever considered.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the American people are better than this.\n\n\u201cAnd I would hope that the Democrat Party would be better than this.\n\n\u201cThe Democrat Party has historically portrayed itself as the defender of the little guy.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that that doesn\u2019t extend to the littlest guys and girls among us \u2013 the unborn babies in danger of dying from abortion.\n\n\u201cThere are hundreds of thousands of abortions in the United States every year.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives lost.\n\n\u201cDo we really need to remove even the most modest restrictions on abortion?\n\n\u201cMr. President, while unfortunately the vast majority of the Democrat Party is in the pocket of the radical abortion lobby, I hope that there are at least some House Democrats out there who aren\u2019t comfortable with this bill and the Democrat Party\u2019s extreme abortion politics.\n\n\u201cAnd I hope that these Democrats will stand up and oppose their party\u2019s abortion-on-demand legislation.\n\n\u201cThis anti-life legislation is an abomination.\n\n\u201cAnd it should never make it out of the House of Representatives.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:17:01Z"]], "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": 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