{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=C2E9A8B8-71BC-4009-929D-3716ACD7F847", "Thune: Democrats\u2019 Supreme Court \u201cReforms\u201d Amount to Changing the Rules in the Middle of the Game", "2024-07-30", "2024", "2024-07", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today called out Democrats\u2019 relentless attempts to politicize and undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court. Thune noted that the administration\u2019s most recent ploy would set an incredibly dangerous precedent and undermine the Supreme Court\u2019s independence.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, yesterday evening, in the tradition of another Democrat president and his infamous court-packing scheme way back in 1937, President Biden announced a proposal to interfere with the Constitution\u2019s separation of powers and permanently politicize the Supreme Court.\n\n\u201cHe dressed it up with appeals to permanent American values.\n\n\u201cBut what it all boiled down to, Mr. President, was this:\n\n\u201cDemocrats don\u2019t like some of the Supreme Court\u2019s recent decisions.\n\n\u201cAnd so they\u2019ve decided to change the rules of the game.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s it.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ve disagreed with more than one Supreme Court decision in my time.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve disagreed with Supreme Court justices nominated by presidents of my own party.\n\n\u201cBut I have never thought that my not agreeing with a Supreme Court decision meant that the court itself was illegitimate \u2013 or that my party should attempt to change the law to make over the Supreme Court in our image.\n\n\u201cNot so for Democrats.\n\n\u201cThe Supreme Court releases a handful of decisions Democrats don\u2019t like, and they decide that the court is illegitimate \u2013 and that it\u2019s time to remake the court to their liking.\n\n\u201cMore than one Democrat has already introduced legislation in Congress to do so.\n\n\u201cAnd now, with the president\u2019s announcement yesterday, it\u2019s become clear that those plans have accelerated \u2013 and that if Democrats take the White House and Congress in November, we can expect them to lose no time in destroying the court as we know it.\n\n\u201cAnd while the president\u2019s proposals are troubling enough \u2013 a measure to circumvent the Constitution\u2019s lifetime appointments for justices and replace the Supreme Court\u2019s own code of conduct with a code of conduct mandated by Democrat congressmembers \u2013 who knows if Democrats will stop there.\n\n\u201cAfter all, while their proposal would conveniently start by retiring Republican appointees, Democrats would only be able to retire one justice every two years.\n\n\u201cWho\u2019s to say that would be fast enough for Democrats?\n\n\u201cWe all know that court-packing \u2013 expanding the Supreme Court until you get a sufficient number of justices to endorse your policies \u2013 has gained significant traction in Democrat circles.\n\n\u201cIndeed, President Biden\u2019s term-limits proposal is a version of court-packing by another name.\n\n\u201cAnd it would not surprise me at all if Democrats didn\u2019t stop there.\n\n\u201cBecause make no mistake, Mr. President, this is a slippery slope.\n\n\u201cOnce you start interfering, there is no going back.\n\n\u201cIf the Democrats implement this plan, it is easy to see a future where each subsequent administration acts to \u2018return balance\u2019 to the Supreme Court, with the result that the Supreme Court changes wildly from administration to administration, losing all independence and credibility and any resemblance to the Supreme Court as established by the Constitution.\n\n\u201cI\u2019d like to remind my Democrat colleagues of what happened with the filibuster for judicial nominees here in the Senate.\n\n\u201cBack in 2013, Democrats \u2013 frustrated that they could not rubber-stamp all of President Obama\u2019s appointees \u2013 abolished the filibuster for lower-court nominees.\n\n\u201cIt turned out to be a quick step from that to abolishing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees a few years later.\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve heard more than one of my Democrat colleagues express regret over that 2013 decision.\n\n\u201cBut it seems that Democrats are resolved not to learn from history \u2013 and are perfectly willing to sacrifice the long-term stability of the Supreme Court for their own short-term political gain.\n\n\u201cMr. President, even worse than any specific element of President Biden\u2019s proposals yesterday is the incredibly dangerous precedent they would set for meddling in what is supposed to be a separate, independent branch of our government.\n\n\u201cIf Democrats were really concerned about impartiality and the rule of law and promoting faith in the Supreme Court, the last thing they would be doing is interfering with the court\u2019s makeup.\n\n\u201cAnd if there are any Democrats left in Congress who are willing to put the long-term health of our institutions over some temporary political gain, I urge them to join Republicans in opposing this power grab.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:32:29Z"]], "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=C2E9A8B8-71BC-4009-929D-3716ACD7F847"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.607922138646245, "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"}