WASHINGTON — Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate Friday under the new leadership of South Dakota’s John Thune, who promised to keep intact the body’s legislative filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for major legislation that some Democrats had targeted for elimination.
Thune follows in the footsteps of the longest-serving Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and takes the reins as Republicans prepare to control the Senate, House and White House once President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
In his first opening remarks as leader, Thune said he would restore the upper chamber as “a place of discussion and deliberation” as the body pursues an aggressive agenda to overhaul immigration and extend 2017 tax cuts — not to mention actually funding the government, albeit months late, once temporary measures expire in March.
Republicans are eying the budget reconciliation process — a legislative maneuver that allows the Senate to avoid the 60-vote filibuster — to achieve as many of the party’s political goals as can be justified in the one-per-fiscal-year budget resolution. Democrats used reconciliation twice during their unified government in the 117th Congress.
Still, Thune hammered in his opening remarks at the start of the 119th Congress that the Senate must remain the “more stable, more thoughtful, more deliberative” body.
“Unfortunately, today there are a lot of people who would like to see the Senate turn into a copy of the House of Representatives,” Thune said on the floor.
“And that,” he continued, “is not what our founders intended or what our country needs. One of my priorities as leader will be to ensure that the Senate stays the Senate. That means preserving the legislative filibuster.”
Thune described the 60-vote rule as having the “greatest impact on preserving the founders’ vision of the United States Senate.”
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who’s served in the chamber since 1981, resumed the position of Senate president pro tempore Friday — a role he last held from 2019 to 2021.
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, now the body’s minority leader, said on the floor Friday that he looks forward to working with Thune and wants to continue “to reach across the aisle.”
“I want to work with the new Republican leader to keep that bipartisan streak going in the new year. I don’t expect we’ll agree on everything or even many things,” Schumer said. “But there are still opportunities to improve the lives of the American people, if we’re willing to work together.”
New senators
Ten new senators were sworn in Friday, including several Republicans who flipped Democratic-held seats.
Among them were Republican Sen. David McCormick, who ousted Pennsylvania’s longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey; Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican who flipped Montana’s Senate seat formerly held by Democrat Jon Tester; and the GOP’s new Sen. Bernie Moreno, who wrested the seat from Ohio’s longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was not among the lawmakers who took the oath Friday. Justice, a Republican who won the seat held by outgoing independent Joe Manchin III, will remain the state’s governor until Jan. 13 before heading to the Senate.
New Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware made history Friday as the first two Black women to serve simultaneously in the upper chamber.
Other newly sworn senators on Friday included Republicans Jim Banks of Indiana and John Curtis of Utah, as well as Democrats Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Ruben Gallego of Arizona.
Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and New Jersey’s Andy Kim took their oaths in December.
