John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, later today, President Jimmy Carter will arrive here at the Capitol for the last time. He will lie in state until Thursday in the Capitol Rotunda so Americans can pay final respects to our Nation's 39th President. It is the great American story--how a man or woman can rise from humble origins to the highest levels of government or business or academia--and it was Jimmy Carter's story. Born in 1924 in Plains, GA, he grew up on a peanut farm, in a house that had no running water or electricity. President was probably not the first thing people would have thought of when considering his future career. Most might have thought that he would end up running the family farm, as, indeed, he did for a while. But he decided to also dip his toe into politics, and, within 14 years, he had gone from taking up office in the Georgia State Senate to taking up office as President of the United States. His Presidency was notable for a number of things, including successful brokering of a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, an agreement that stands to this day. But it was, perhaps, his post- Presidency that came to define his legacy the most. Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, and during the four decades that followed, he dedicated himself to making a difference to the causes of peace and human rights and to improving the wellbeing of his fellow man. Together, with his wife Rosalynn, he founded the Carter Center, which, among other things, works for the eradication of disease in some of the poorest areas of the globe. Among the center's successes is the almost whole eradication of Guinea worm disease, a painful and devastating tropical disease whose cases numbered in the millions at the time the Carter Center was beginning its work. Through the first 10 months of 2024, there were just seven reported cases--an incredible legacy for anyone, but just part of President Carter's. President Carter is also known for his work with Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable housing for those in need. And I do mean his work. President Carter didn't just lend his name or image to Habitat. He built houses. He nailed it, drilled it. He installed toilets. Well into his nineties, you could find him in a hardhat on worksites, participating like any other volunteer. In one early Habitat project, he and Rosalynn worked in New York City. The former First Lady and the former President spent the week sleeping in the basement of a church with other volunteers--a characteristic example of unpretentiousness from a couple who lived all their lives in a modest house in Plains, GA, that they built long before the Presidency. All told, the Carter Work Project at Habitat for Humanity has worked on 4,447 homes in 14 countries, including homes in Eagle Butte, in my State of South Dakota, which the Carters worked on during a 1994 trip to our State. It is unknown how many more homes have been built by volunteers who came to know about Habitat for Humanity through President Jimmy Carter. It would be wrong to mention Jimmy Carter's years of service without mentioning what animated them. Jimmy Carter saw his service as a natural outgrowth of his faith in Jesus Christ. ``One of the best ways to practice my faith as a Christian,'' he would say, ``is to participate in Habitat projects every year.'' His life was about putting his religious principles into practice, whether that was through Habitat for Humanity or through his other work. And, of course, anyone attracted by his example who wanted to learn more about the Christian faith could head down to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA, to his Sunday school class, which he taught into his nineties. Madam President, I cannot close without mentioning Jimmy Carter's 77- year-long marriage to his beloved wife Rosalynn, who preceded him in death a year ago. And while I join all Americans in mourning the death of President Carter, I rejoice at the thought that he and Rosalynn are again together before the face of their Father. My thoughts and prayers are with the Carters' children--Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy--and with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I look forward to paying my respects to this public servant later today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, in order to place the bill on the calendar under provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceeding.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, for the purpose of S. Res. 16, the majority committee membership resolution, the blank spaces with respect to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Energy and Natural Resources; Small Business and Entrepreneurship; and Special Committee on Aging are there to preserve the ratios on those committees negotiated between the Democratic leader and myself. It is my intention to place Senator elect Jim Justice of West Virginia on those committees by subsequent resolution when he is sworn in on January 14, 2025. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 11 a.m. on Wednesday, January 8; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in just a few minutes, Senators will head over to the Chamber of the House of Representatives to count the electoral votes and certify the election of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as President and Vice President of the United States. Today, I want to offer my warmest congratulations to President Trump and Vice President-elect Vance. They scored a tremendous victory this last November. Republicans improved our margins in nearly 90 percent of counties in the United States and grew support with nearly every demographic group. The Republican coalition is broad and strong and growing. Now the work begins on delivering on our agenda. Mr. President, Republicans are ready to go. We are committed to ending the Biden-Harris border crisis, securing our southern border, and restoring respect for the rule of law. We are committed to restoring American strength to secure our Nation and discourage the actors fomenting instability on the world stage. We are committed to strengthening our economic and fiscal future, which includes extending tax relief for hard-working Americans. We are committed to advancing American energy dominance to promote both affordable energy and our national security. The list goes on, and we are getting right to work. Along with advancing these priorities, we will be focused on getting President Trump's Cabinet up and running quickly by ensuring that his nominees are speedily confirmed here in the U.S. Senate. The voters sent President Trump here with a mission, and we are committed to ensuring that he has the people around him that he needs to deliver. It has been a tough 4 years for the American people. The Biden administration was characterized by a historic inflation crisis that left millions of Americans struggling, a border crisis that jeopardized our national security, and increasing instability on the world stage. But I believe that a brighter future is ahead. I look forward to working with President Trump, with Vice President Vance--a Senate colleague, I might add--and with Republicans in both Houses to secure that brighter future for the American people.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last week I received news that my high school basketball and track coach, Jerry Applebee, had died. I want to take a moment here on the Senate floor to pay tribute to him. He was a deeply formative figure for me in my teenage years, setting an example for us players of hard work, determination, and sportsmanship. Together with my dad, also a coach, he founded the Jones County Invitational Basketball Tournament, which is my hometown's annual regular-season basketball tournament--the longest running tournament of its kind in South Dakota, started back in the 1960s--an event I played in and still love attending to this day. Among the memories I have of Coach Applebee, a lot of them are around that auditorium. And the floor there--the court--is called the Jerry Applebee Court in his honor. As I recall my days playing basketball there, there was one thing that you never could miss in any game in which he was involved, and that was his loud voice bouncing off the ceiling in that auditorium. That auditorium was built in 1954. At the time, it was kind of the Taj Mahal among auditoriums--gymnasiums--in my part of South Dakota, and, to this day, it continues to serve our school and the surrounding schools really well. Some opposing teams refer to it as ``the barn.'' But the one thing you were always sure of when Murdo-Jones County was playing a basketball game, you could hear Coach Applebee anywhere in the gymnasium because he had a raspy, strong, resonant, deep voice, and he was not afraid to use it. I remember that in the basketball gymnasium, and I remember it on the track as well. One of my clearest memories of Coach Applebee--or ``App,'' as we called him--happened during my senior year. We were playing in the district championship game with a chance to go on in the playoffs and make it, ultimately, to the State tournament, which was every kid in my hometown's aspiration. Those of us who loved sports always dreamed of playing in the State basketball tournament--something that I had been, from the time I was a kindergartner, aspiring to have the opportunity to do. We got the last chance my senior year, in a district championship game. We were playing our archrival, Lyman County, in their gymnasium. As was typically the case, it was a back-and-forth game. They were ahead by a point at the end of the first quarter, we were ahead by a point at halftime, and they were ahead by a point in the third quarter. It got down to the end of the game. We were down 1 point, with 5 seconds left on the clock. So Coach Applebee calls time-out. We huddle on the sidelines. He calls the play. We break the huddle. My teammates inbound the ball. I had a teammate that came down and set a screen for me on the baseline. I came out--today, to what would be the 3-point line, although we didn't have the 3-point line back in that day--and I fired off a shot that I would hope was going to win the game and take us on to the regional playoffs. Well, it came off the back of the rim. It didn't go down. There were a lot of people in the gym that thought it was going to, but it didn't. Obviously, after the game--my last opportunity at pursuing a chance to play in the State basketball tournament--I was sitting in the locker room by myself. Most of the team had gotten on the bus, and they were waiting for some of the rest of us and for the coaches. Coach Applebee came over to me, and he tapped me on the shoulder, and he said: ``John, it's time to get on the bus. And, by the way, track starts next week.'' He knew I wasn't a big fan of track. Track wasn't my favorite sport, but he was sending an important message. That message is: Look, you gave it your best shot. You gave it everything you had. There is always another sport, another day, and you will have another opportunity down the road to do what you want to do. So that was a really important message and very affirming to me at a time as a young athlete who felt not only had I let myself down but I had let my teammates down as well. I will never forget that comment he made to me at that critical time in what was early, early in my sports career. Well, I just remembered, too, later that year, his coming and pulling me out of class--I think it was an English class--to tell me that I had made the all-State basketball team's first team. As he came out and kind of pointed at me and signaled this way, I thought, ``Oh, no. What have I done now?'' But we got out in the hallway, and he couldn't have been more excited to share that news. It was an example, again, of how invested he was in the success of the players he coached and the people--the young kids--around him. He was also the principal of the high school and wanted to see them succeed and do well in life. Well, of course, track season was the next season. In my hometown, oftentimes, we had, you know, a lot of snow in the winter, and sometimes it didn't get dried up in the spring or if we had a wet spring, for that matter--the track where we ran was a dirt track. It was north of town, and it was a fairly low spot. So, oftentimes, the track was wet. To do our conditioning, particularly early in the season, we would run city blocks. A block would be like the equivalent of about a 400 repeat, and we would run a series of those. We would do our long warmup runs, and we would run city blocks. The other thing we would do is we would go down to the airport south of town. The airport south of town has a little landing strip, and it is about a half a mile long. My colleague Senator Rounds here has probably flown into it. He is a pilot. But we would run down. There was about 2.2 miles to get down there, so that was kind of our warmup run, and then we would do our workouts on the airport runway. We would all line up at one end of the runway, and Coach Applebee would be down at the other end of the runway. If you have ever seen a half mile along a straightaway, he looked like this little figure down there. And we would all line up, and sometimes you could even inch forward a little bit because he couldn't see you--he was so far away--but he always knew what you were up to, and you could hear him. Even then, you could hear him. I remember, later that year, running at the State track meet in Sioux Falls, which is a lot larger outdoor place that we ran, and Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls seats somewhere on the order of 12,000 people, but even in a crowded outdoor arena, you could hear his voice up in the crowd. It was unmistakable. He was always barking something out--in many cases, admonishing you to do better, to run harder, to be more successful. So I am just grateful for the impact that he had on my life, and as I think about the admonition from him of ``track starts next week,'' there is always another day. We have to get up and do our work and make sure that we are doing the best that we can to accomplish our work here on behalf of the American people. So those are the lessons that I have taken with me: Accept your losses, and get to work on the next thing. It is one of the many lessons that has stuck with me from Coach Applebee. I am going to miss seeing Coach Applebee on my visits to Murdo, and I remain deeply grateful for everything he taught me along the way. And I want his family to know my thoughts and prayers are with them, with his loved ones. And I will just say: Rest in peace, Coach Applebee. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that upon dissolution of the joint session today, the Senate stand adjourned until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, January 7; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance)

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the longest serving party leader in Senate history: Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Over the course of a political career that began with a hard-fought race for student council president in his junior year of high school--a race, I might add, that he won with what would become his signature blend of hard work, intelligence, and determination--Mitch has built a legacy that will long, long outlast his time here in the U.S. Senate. The day he became the longest serving party leader in Senate history, Leader McConnell delivered a speech discussing past Senate party leaders and their characteristics, from the mastery of relationships demonstrated by Lyndon Johnson to the ``tackle football'' of Joseph Taylor Robinson. It got me thinking about some of the things that have characterized Mitch's tenure, and there are three of them that stand out to me, in particular. First, there is Mitch's peerless knowledge of Senate procedure. I suspect few who have served in this body have developed the kind of knowledge that Mitch possesses of the most arcane details--and they are arcane--of Senate rules. But Mitch recognized early on that knowledge of Senate procedure could play a big part in success as a Senator, and he was right. And so, with his signature determination, he set out to acquire it and became an undisputed master. Second, to that wealth of knowledge, he has added a fierce commitment to the Senate as an institution, a commitment I hope to emulate when I take the reins as majority leader next year. There are a lot of people out there these days who would like to see the Senate turn into a copy of the House of Representatives, but that is not what our Founders envisioned or what our country needs, and Mitch has served our entire country by fighting to ensure that the Senate maintains its institutional character. Finally, perhaps the aspect of Mitch's tenure that stands out to me the most is the work that he has done to protect the rule of law by filling the judiciary with judges and Justices who understand what the role of a judge is: to interpret the law and not make it; to call balls and strikes, not rewrite the rules of the game. During his time as majority leader, Mitch oversaw the confirmation of 234 men and women to the Federal bench--3 of them as Supreme Court Justices. And the effects of that will be felt for a long time to come in decisions up and down the judiciary that respect the law and the Constitution. That is no small legacy. And Mitch can step down from his post knowing that no one has done more to preserve our legal system and the essential role that it plays in our Republic. Mitch, it has been a great honor to serve with you. And I am grateful that, while you are stepping down from your role as leader, you will still be here in the Senate, bringing your mastery of Senate procedure to leadership of the Senate Rules Committee. Hopefully--hopefully--you won't mind a few knocks on your door for advice. Thank you for your long and faithful service to our party, to the Senate, and to our country. I look forward to continuing to work with you in the years ahead. I yield the floor.