{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=CBC30014-B537-4A38-8C41-B34799F371A0", "Thune: \u201cMy Way or the Highway\u201d for Senate Democrats", "2024-09-10", "2024", "2024-09", "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 spoke on the Senate floor about Senate Democrats\u2019 reckless plan to end the legislative filibuster, a short-sighted political tactic to advance their far-left agenda and silence the minority party. Thune noted that Democrats have a record of changing the rules whenever they interfere with the party\u2019s progressive agenda.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s no secret that Democrats increasingly subscribe to the philosophy that if you don\u2019t like the way the game is going, you change the rules.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it in striking fashion with the Supreme Court.\n\n\u201cDemocrats respond to pretty much every Supreme Court decision they don\u2019t like these days with claims not just that the court\u2019s decision was wrong, but that the court itself is illegitimate.\n\n\u201cAnd as the president made clear with the release of his de facto court-packing plan this summer, if Democrats are elected we can confidently expect them to lose no time in remaking the court to their liking to ensure they get the policy outcomes they want.\n\n\u201cBut of course the Supreme Court is not the only institution Democrats have a problem with.\n\n\u201cDemocrats are also frustrated that they haven\u2019t gotten a blank check for their far-left priorities in the Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd so if Democrats win in November, they intend to change the rules of the Senate \u2013 specifically, the filibuster rule \u2013 to ensure that they can steamroll through their plans to remake the government and the country.\n\n\u201cThe Democrat leader made that very explicit last month at the Democrat National Convention, when he said that his party would change the rules to pass Democrats\u2019 so-called voting rights legislation \u2013 more accurately described as a federal takeover of elections designed to give Democrats a permanent electoral advantage.\n\n\u201cHe also indicated that his conference would move to change the rules to pass abortion legislation \u2013 perhaps Democrats\u2019 bill to codify abortion up until the moment of birth.\n\n\u201cReally, the only question remaining seems to be whether Democrats will abolish the filibuster completely, or just render it meaningless by carving out exemptions for all Democrats\u2019 most cherished priorities.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I have spoken on the floor more than once about the importance of the filibuster.\n\n\u201cThe Founders intended the Senate to be a counterbalance to the House.\n\n\u201cIt was designed as a more stable, more thoughtful, and more deliberative legislative body to check ill-considered or intemperate legislation or tyranny by the majority.\n\n\u201cAnd as time has gone on, the legislative filibuster is the Senate rule that has had perhaps the greatest impact in preserving the Founders\u2019 vision of the Senate.\n\n\u201cThe filibuster acts as a check on imprudent or highly partisan legislation.\n\n\u201cIt forces discussion and compromise.\n\n\u201cAnd, critically, it ensures that Americans whose party is not in power also have a voice in Congress.\n\n\u201cAs one senator said a few years ago when abolishing the filibuster was under discussion, \u2018Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights \u2026 and would undermine the protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority excess.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat senator was Joe Biden.\n\n\u201cOr as another senator once said when a change to the filibuster rule was under discussion: \u2018The bottom line is very simple: the ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the Founding Fathers called the cooling saucer of democracy into the rubber stamp of dictatorship. \u2026 They want, because they can\u2019t get their way \u2026 to change the rules in midstream, to wash away 200 years of history. They want to make this country into a banana republic where if you don\u2019t get your way, you change the rules! \u2026 It\u2019ll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018It\u2019ll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe senator who said that, of course, was the current Democrat leader of the Senate.\n\n\u201cThe same leader who has announced that his party will \u2018change the rules in midstream\u2019 to force through Democrats\u2019 priorities.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I suppose the Democrat leader could have had a change of heart.\n\n\u201cThis once-fierce defender of the filibuster could have become convinced that the filibuster no longer serves a useful purpose.\n\n\u201cBut if that\u2019s what this is \u2013 if this is truly a principled change \u2013 then I would like to hear the Democrat leader endorse the abolition of the filibuster if Republicans win the election.\n\n\u201cI would like to hear him argue that a Republican Congress and a Republican president should be able to force through every legislative priority Republicans want \u2013 whether that\u2019s real border security legislation or a ban on killing unborn children past the point in a pregnancy where they can feel pain.\n\n\u201cI suspect, however, that the Democrat leader has not had this change of heart.\n\n\u201cIn fact, I suspect that if President Trump wins the election and Republicans take the House and the Senate, the Democrat leader will be happy to use the filibuster to check Republican legislation, just as he did during President Trump\u2019s first term.\n\n\u201cFunnily enough, I don\u2019t recall hearing much from Democrats about the need to abolish the filibuster then.\n\n\u201cIn fact, 32 Democrats \u2013 including then-Senator Kamala Harris \u2013 signed a letter in April of 2017 calling on Senate leadership to preserve the legislative filibuster.\n\n\u201cIn short, Mr. President, it\u2019s pretty clear that the Democrat leader\u2019s change of heart isn\u2019t principle.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s political expediency.\n\n\u201cDemocrats believe that the rules should apply when they serve the aims of the Democrat Party \u2013 and that the rules should be abolished whenever they interfere with Democrats\u2019 far-left agenda.\n\n\u201cMr. President, if Democrats abolish the filibuster \u2013 in whole or in part \u2013 it would (to quote the current Democrat whip) \u2018be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe minority party \u2013 in the Senate and in the country \u2013 would no longer have any meaningful voice in legislation.\n\n\u201cThe loss of the filibuster would also create legislative whiplash, with one party passing all its most controversial proposals when it has unified power in Washington, and then the other party undoing all of that legislation and passing its own proposals when it gains unified power.\n\n\u201cTo say that that kind of legislative instability would be bad for our country is an understatement.\n\n\u201cSharp changes in federal policy every few years would mean endless confusion for Americans \u2013 and could spell serious trouble for our economy.\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, abolishing the filibuster would not only be bad for our country, I suspect Democrats would regret it on their own behalf \u2013 and sooner rather than later.\n\n\u201cI realize that Democrats have hopes that if they pass their so-called voting rights legislation it will help them stay in power, but surely Democrats don\u2019t believe that they can maintain a permanent hold on government.\n\n\u201cThere have been some pretty robust Senate majorities in American history, but sooner or later, power has always shifted.\n\n\u201cAnd when it inevitably does, Democrats are likely to bitterly regret the loss of the legislative filibuster.\n\n\u201cDemocrats have already had cause to regret the loss of the filibuster for judicial nominations.\n\n\u201cMore than one Democrat senator has openly admitted regretting Democrats\u2019 move to abolish the filibuster for judges and other nominees.\n\n\u201cThey should take a lesson from that.\n\n\u201cAnd if Democrats have the incredibly na\u00efve idea that they can somehow preserve the filibuster by simply creating a carveout for their top legislative priorities, they should think again.\n\n\u201cThe unraveling of the filibuster for judicial nominations should be a lesson to both parties on how well weakening the filibuster or creating a filibuster carveout would work.\n\n\u201cDemocrats carved out a filibuster exception for executive and judicial nominees.\n\n\u201cAnd Republicans took it to its logical conclusion.\n\n\u201cA legislative filibuster carveout would be the end of the legislative filibuster. Period.\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s become disturbingly clear that the Democrat Party is committed to getting its way in whatever way it can \u2013 no matter how many institutions it damages or how many rules it breaks in the process.\n\n\u201cBut I would hope that at least some of my Democrat colleagues might think about the fact that their operating principle of \u2018the rules don\u2019t apply to us\u2019 is generally more associated with despots than democratic republics.\n\n\u201cAnd that they would put the long-term health of our country and our institutions above short-term partisan gain.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "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=CBC30014-B537-4A38-8C41-B34799F371A0"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6863271594047546, "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"}