{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D91B9F94-ABFD-4E88-90C0-C1E97CE5F98F", "Thune on Senate Republicans\u2019 Record-Breaking Year", "2025-12-18", "2025", "2025-12", "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, as \u2026 we\u2019re about to wrap up \u2026 our legislative work for 2025, I would say it\u2019s been quite a busy year here in the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cThe longest session period in 15 years to kick off the year.\n\n\u201cAn historic number of votes \u2013 the most, literally, in half a century.\n\n\u201cIn fact, Mr. President, if you can see on this chart, the number of votes, you go back, the first date on there is [1983].\n\n\u201cObviously, this is pretty small, difficult to see, perhaps, unless you\u2019re standing right over it.\n\n\u201cBut if you look at the red line here, that\u2019s this year \u2013 so, 653 votes cast so far this year.\n\n\u201cWhich dwarfs any year going back to 1989, which is what we had data going back to.\n\n\u201cWe have since researched farther back; turns out there was one year, 1976 \u2013 we went back eight decades \u2013 there was one year, 1976, where the Senate cast more votes than we did this year.\n\n\u201cBut if you go back to [1983], the closest one is right here, 1995, which for those of us who were actually following it back then, that was the Contract with America year, and so that was a record number of votes cast in both, I think, the House and the Senate.\n\n\u201cBut we have eclipsed that.\n\n\u201cThere were 613 votes cast in 1995; this year in the United States Senate, we have already cast 653 \u2013 and we are not quite done yet.\n\n\u201cSo, historic just in terms of the number of votes cast, the number of hours in session, and the number of days in session \u2013 also historic just in terms of the amount of time that we\u2019ve been around here, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cSo we\u2019ve put in a lot of time here this year.\n\n\u201cNow, I have always said that you can\u2019t equate volume of activity or busyness with productivity \u2013 I think you have to, those are sometimes separate metrics.\n\n\u201cBut I would argue, Mr. President, that what really matters is not the number of votes or the number of hours that we\u2019ve worked \u2013 it is what we accomplished with those hours.\n\n\u201cAnd this has been an incredibly productive Senate, and I\u2019m proud to say that we\u2019ve accomplished a lot this year in the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cOur flagship bill \u2026 for the year, of course, was the One Big Beautiful Bill \u2013 the Working Families Tax Cuts Act.\n\n\u201cAnd the largest part of that was, in fact, the tax cuts that were enacted that are going to benefit American families, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cBack in 2017, the Republicans delivered substantial tax relief for hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cBut that tax relief was scheduled to expire at the end of this month.\n\n\u201cAnd so one of our main priorities for this year was extending that tax relief.\n\n\u201cAnd extend it we did.\n\n\u201cBut we didn\u2019t just extend it \u2013 we made it permanent, and we added to it additional tax relief on top.\n\n\u201cSo now hardworking Americans can enjoy permanently lower rates, plus an increased standard deduction, a further increase in the child tax credit, a new bonus deduction for seniors, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and Mr. President, that list goes on and on.\n\n\u201cIn addition to new and permanent tax relief for individuals and families, we also made permanent important tax relief for businesses of all sizes, to help our growth and expand jobs and opportunities for American workers.\n\n\u201cSo, I would just say again, Mr. President, if you look at that map, this measures \u2013 and again, it\u2019s too far away for people to see \u2013 but the color coding represents the amount of tax relief that people in these individual states or even within a state will receive based upon the filings and what we expect they\u2019ll be filing for next year.\n\n\u201cBut if you can see at the top of that, the U.S. average is $3,752 in savings as a result of what we did to prevent what would have been the largest tax increase in American history.\n\n\u201cAnd so American families this next year, American businesses, are going to have more money in their pockets as a result of what we did.\n\n\u201cHad we not taken those actions, the average [filer] across this country would\u2019ve seen a $3,752 increase in their taxes.\n\n\u201cAnd so that\u2019s sort of representative of the chart across the country, and the darker ones means you\u2019re probably getting more tax relief relative to the lighter colors,.\n\n\u201cBut nevertheless everyone in this country who files a tax return is going to see a much lower tax bill, tax liability, this next year as a result of what we did.\n\n\u201cSo, that\u2019s a lot right there, Mr. President, in and of itself.\n\n\u201cBut the One Big Beautiful Bill didn\u2019t end with the Working Families Tax Cuts.\n\n\u201cWe also invested in a more secure border and safer streets.\n\n\u201cWe made a historic investment in our national security.\n\n\u201cAnd we repealed the Democrats\u2019 natural gas tax and took steps to unleash American energy production, to ensure that Americans have stable, plentiful, and affordable supply of energy.\n\n\u201cWe took measures to modernize the farm safety net, something very important in my state of South Dakota.\n\n\u201cTo address housing costs.\n\n\u201cTo repair and upgrade our air traffic control system.\n\n\u201cNow, Mr. President, I could keep going.\n\n\u201cThe Working Families Tax Cuts and the rest of the One Big Beautiful Bill accomplished a lot for hardworking Americans.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s not all that we\u2019ve done in the Senate this year.\n\n\u201cThe American people elected President Trump last November.\n\n\u201cAnd one of our priorities this year has been ensuring that the president has his team in place so that he can do the job the American people elected him to do.\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019m proud to report that by the end of this week, we will have confirmed 417 nominees \u2013 far more than were confirmed by this point in either President Trump\u2019s first term or in President Biden\u2019s term.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s even more remarkable, Mr. President \u2013 and again, you can see this in real form here.\n\n\u201cThis was President Trump\u2019s first term in office \u2013 at the end of his first year, which would be the end of 2017, there were 323 of his nominees that had been confirmed.\n\n\u201cUnder President Biden, at the end of the first year, 2021, there were 365 of his nominees who had been confirmed by the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd as of today, that number here in 2025, in President Trump\u2019s second term, will be 417 nominees.\n\n\u201cAnd that is important, Mr. President, because every president needs to have his team in place to do the job that the American people elected him to do.\n\n\u201cSo, as we think about, and [I] discussed on the floor yesterday, you look at the president\u2019s [second] term, what makes this even more remarkable was the fact that there was a historic level of obstruction by the Democrats to getting the president\u2019s nominees in place.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m talking about something unlike we\u2019ve ever seen in American history for any president of any political party.\n\n\u201cAnd if you look at his [second] term, Mr. President, President Trump remains the only president on record not to have had a single civilian nomination confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cThe only president on record.\n\n\u201cDemocrats have dragged out the process on almost every single one of the president\u2019s nominations.\n\n\u201cNot out of principle, but out of petty partisanship.\n\n\u201cAny president going back in history, Mr. President, when they get elected, get a mandate from the American people, generally both political parties \u2013 and I\u2019ve been here through multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat, and I\u2019ve been here in multiple Congresses and Senates, both Republican and Democrat, and in every case, a lot of, particularly when you get past the Cabinet, which we all take very seriously, obviously, and there is a process in place and some of the changes that we made to expedite nominations didn\u2019t affect Cabinet-level nominees \u2013 but when you get to the sub-Cabinet level, in many cases, particularly noncontroversial nominees have been approved by unanimous consent or voice vote.\n\n\u201cIt is a way of recognizing that a president needs to get his team in place in order to accomplish the work and the agenda that the American people elected, in this case President Trump, to do.\n\n\u201cAnd so what happened this year was historic and unprecedented.\n\n\u201cBecause most of those lower-level Cabinet nominees are done by unanimous consent \u2013 that\u2019s just been the practice, that has been the precedent, that has been the tradition, that has been the history of the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd for President Trump, the first president in American history.\n\n\u201cBut as I said, Mr. President, we as Republicans haven\u2019t let that stop us, and so when we close out this year with a total of 417 nominees [confirmed], we will have the backlog of nominees essentially cleared.\n\n\u201cMr. President, considering nominations is one responsibility of the government.\n\n\u201cFunding the government \u2013 together with the House of Representatives \u2013 is another.\n\n\u201cAnd one thing that I was determined on when I became leader was to make sure that the Senate went about considering the yearly appropriations bills through regular order \u2013 a process that gives senators from both parties the greatest chance to make their voices (and the voices of their constituents, I might add) heard.\n\n\u201cAnd we\u2019ve done a lot to return the Senate to a regular order process this year.\n\n\u201cAppropriations work was unnecessarily delayed by Democrats\u2019 decision to shut down the government for six weeks.\n\n\u201cBut despite that, we\u2019ve had multiple individual appropriations bills signed into law, and the Senate is well on its way to passing five additional bills.\n\n\u201cNow, Mr. President, there\u2019s a lot more I could talk about when it comes to Senate accomplishments in 2025.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve taken action to repeal a number of burdensome rules and regulations, including the Biden electric vehicle mandate, appliance rules that would have driven up prices for hardworking Americans and businesses, and energy mandates that would have driven up energy prices for American families.\n\n\u201cWe passed the HALT Fentanyl Act to permanently schedule fentanyl analogues as the most deadly type of drugs.\n\n\u201cWe passed the Laken Riley Act to keep criminal illegal aliens off our streets.\n\n\u201cWe passed the GENIUS Act \u2013 a landmark bill to create the first U.S. federal framework for stablecoins and ensure \u2026 U.S. leadership in financial innovation.\n\n\u201cWe passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act to combat nonconsensual explicit images being shared online.\n\n\u201cAnd Mr. President, so much more that I could talk about.\n\n\u201cAnd we even tried to do things that ultimately were blocked by Democrats, like legislation that would prevent biological males from hijacking opportunities for women and girls in sports.\n\n\u201cI guess my point, Mr. President: It\u2019s been a long and a challenging year here in the United States Senate.\n\n\u201cAnd I thank all of my colleagues \u2013 both Republican and Democrat \u2013 and all the staff, including the folks here on the floor, who put in long days and long hours in this last year.\n\n\u201cAnd I think, Mr. President, there is a lot to show for it.\n\n\u201cIn fact, if I put up this last chart, you\u2019ll have a hard time, nobody\u2019s going to be able to read this, for sure.\n\n\u201cBut I do this only simply to illustrate, this is the list of things that we have accomplished in this last year.\n\n\u201cAnd it runs the gamut from all the things, some of which I just mentioned \u2013 a lot of which I didn\u2019t mention \u2013 that were included in the Working Families Tax Cuts, the One Big Beautiful Bill that passed last summer.\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cSo, Mr. President, it is, I think, an example of what we all came here to do.\n\n\u201cAnd thanks to our work this year, Americans are going to be looking at, one, safer streets; two, more money in their pockets; and three, new opportunities \u2013 new opportunities to get ahead and new opportunities on the way for American people and American families.\n\n\u201cAnd so Mr. President, we\u2019re going to keep advancing those priorities here in the United States Senate in 2026 \u2013 and build on the record of accomplishment and successes that we have had here in 2025.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "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=D91B9F94-ABFD-4E88-90C0-C1E97CE5F98F"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.899794977158308, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": 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