{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=CA35F514-989B-48E7-82D0-F87A5685F42E", "Thune: Judge Amy Coney Barrett Will Be an Outstanding Addition to the U.S. Supreme Court", "2020-10-26", "2020", "2020-10", "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 discussed the upcoming Senate vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to occur later today. Thune also discussed COVID relief and urged his Democrat colleagues to work with Senate Republicans in good faith to deliver much-needed resources to the American people.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, later today we will confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.\n\n\u201cBy now, I don\u2019t need to tell anybody that she is one of the most highly qualified Supreme Court candidates in living memory.\n\n\u201cHer appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was a master-class in what a Supreme Court justice should look like \u2013 which is probably why a majority of voters want the Senate to confirm this outstanding nominee to the nation\u2019s highest court.\n\n\u201cMr. President, a CNN anchor recently pointed out that, and I quote, \u201cin another age \u2026 Judge Amy Coney Barrett would be getting 70 votes or more in the United States Senate \u2026 because of her qualifications.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s unquestionably true.\n\n\u201cBut unfortunately it\u2019s extremely unlikely that Judge Barrett will be collecting 70 or more votes later today.\n\n\u201cBecause for my Democrat colleagues, this has never been about Judge Barrett\u2019s qualifications.\n\n\u201cDemocrats were never going to support this nomination, no matter how supremely qualified the individual in question.\n\n\u201cThe president could have nominated the wisest, most outstanding jurist in the history of the world, and Democrats would still be opposing this nomination \u2013 in large part simply because it was made by this president.\n\n\u201cDemocrats had their talking points ready from the beginning \u2013 the same talking points they trot out for every Republican Supreme Court nominee.\n\n\u201cThe sky will fall if this nominee makes it onto the court, they cry.\n\n\u201cMinorities will suffer.\n\n\u201cWomen will suffer.\n\n\u201cAmericans will lose their health care.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve used that one a lot this time.\n\n\u201cDemocrats would like to convince Americans that Republicans are trying to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court for the sole purpose of eliminating the Affordable Care Act and protections for preexisting conditions.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a ludicrous charge \u2013 every Republican in the Senate supports protections for preexisting conditions \u2013 but apparently that doesn\u2019t matter to Democrats.\n\n\u201cThe truth is, Mr. President, Republicans have no idea how Judge Barrett would rule on any particular Obamacare case.\n\n\u201cThe facts of each case are unique, with unique legal and constitutional issues.\n\n\u201cWhat we do know is that Judge Barrett will approach each case without prejudices or preconceived notions.\n\n\u201cWe know that she will examine the facts of the case, the law, and the Constitution, and make her decision based solely on those criteria.\n\n\u201cNot her political beliefs.\n\n\u201cNot her personal opinions.\n\n\u201cJust the law and the Constitution.\n\n\u201cNo matter which party drafted any legislation in question.\n\n\u201cThat should reassure Democrats.\n\n\u201cBut it doesn\u2019t.\n\n\u201cBecause for many Democrats, their primary concern in confirming judges is not whether they will uphold the law, but whether they will deliver the policy outcomes Democrats want.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why some Democrats are threatening to resurrect the long-discredited idea of court-packing, should they return to the majority.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re not sure that they can rely on a Supreme Court with Judge Barrett to deliver the policy outcomes they want.\n\n\u201cSo they want to add justices to the Supreme Court until they can be sure that they\u2019ll get the results they desire.\n\n\u201cOne has to wonder where this will end.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s say Democrats add three more justices to the court.\n\n\u201cThen when Republicans take the majority back, we add three more justices, to counteract Democrats\u2019 power grab.\n\n\u201cThen Democrats get back in power and add still more justices.\n\n\u201cIt won\u2019t be long before the members of the Supreme Court are more numerous than the members of the Senate.\n\n\u201cMr. President, in addition to trying to scare Americans by suggesting that Republicans are trying to take away Americans\u2019 health care, Democrats have also tried to delegitimize the process.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve tried to suggest that it\u2019s wrong for Republicans to take up this nomination in an election year, because Republicans didn\u2019t confirm Merrick Garland when President Obama nominated him in an election year.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019m not going to spend a lot of time on this because the Republican leader, myself, and others have spent ample time demonstrating that confirming Judge Barrett is well within historical precedent.\n\n\u201cBut I will say this.\n\n\u201cThe Constitution gives the Senate the power to advise and consent to nominations made by the president.\n\n\u201cThe Senate has full authority to accept or reject the president\u2019s nominations \u2013 at any point in time during a Congress or a president\u2019s term.\n\n\u201cThere is no constitutional carve-out for election years.\n\n\u201cThe minority party may not always like it when the majority confirms a nominee \u2013 which I completely understand, having been in the minority myself.\n\n\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean that the majority party is doing anything wrong by proceeding with a nomination.\n\n\u201cI also have to ask: Are Democrats seriously suggesting that if they were in the same position \u2013 if they were in the majority in the Senate and the president were a Democrat \u2013 that they would decline to approve a qualified jurist to the Supreme Court simply because the vacancy had occurred in an election year?\n\n\u201cI think everyone knows that if Democrats were in the same position they would absolutely confirm a Democrat nominee to the court \u2013 as they repeatedly urged us to do in 2016 \u2013 and they would be well within their constitutional rights to do so.\n\n\u201cJust as Republicans are well within our constitutional rights to confirm Judge Barrett.\n\n\u201cMr. President, before I close, I\u2019d like to touch on another claim the Democrat leader keeps making \u2013 that Judge Barrett\u2019s nomination is somehow distracting Republicans from the COVID crisis, or that her nomination is preventing us from taking up COVID legislation.\n\n\u201cThat is flat-out false, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThe Senate is capable of focusing on more than one important issue at a time.\n\n\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s pretty much a requirement of our job that we be able to do so.\n\n\u201cHas the Democrat leader forgotten that Republicans tried to bring up additional COVID relief legislation just days ago \u2026 and that Democrats filibustered it?\n\n\u201cAnd that they did the same thing when we tried to bring up COVID relief legislation in September?\n\n\u201cRepublicans have been ready to pass additional COVID legislation for months.\n\n\u201cThe only reason we haven\u2019t passed it already is because Democrats have refused to agree to any compromise legislation that could actually make it through the Senate and to the president\u2019s desk.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m hoping that sooner rather than later, my friends on the other side will see the value in working together to deliver real relief to our fellow Americans.\n\n\u201cThis disease doesn\u2019t recognize party differences, and I\u2019m hopeful that my colleagues will realize that passing COVID relief shouldn\u2019t be a time for insisting on partisan priorities.\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s unfortunate that Judge Barrett\u2019s nomination has been overshadowed by so much partisanship from Democrats.\n\n\u201cBut ultimately, Mr. President, what matters is that we are confirming this outstanding nominee.\n\n\u201cAs I said yesterday, I came to the Senate with the hope of putting judges like Amy Coney Barrett on the bench \u2013 thoughtful, intelligent men and women with a consummate command of the law and, most of all, with a clear understanding that the job of a judge is to interpret the law, not make the law.\n\n\u201cTo call balls and strikes, not rewrite the rules of the game.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I am very proud to cast my vote to confirm Judge Barrett.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-28T00:34:36Z"]], "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=CA35F514-989B-48E7-82D0-F87A5685F42E"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9318988304585218, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": 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