Weekly Round[s] Up: September 29 - October 5, 2025
Welcome back to another Weekly Round[s] Up. As you know, this past week, we entered a government shutdown, otherwise known as the Schumer Shutdown. Democrats chose to shut down the government by refusing to pass a clean, 7-week continuing resolution (CR). This legislation received bipartisan support in the House and would keep government open and funded through November 21. Instead, Senate Democrats are following their leader of Chuck Schumer and using the American people as leverage, attempting to unwind provisions from the reconciliation bill. One issue that will need to be addressed is whether to extend the enhanced ACA tax credits before they expire at the end of the year. Republicans will work with Democrats on this issue, but not until we get government reopened again.
While Republicans control the Senate, we still have a filibuster in place which requires about 10 Democrats to join us to end this Schumer Shutdown. Nobody wins in a government shutdown, especially essential personnel such as military members and law enforcement officers who are working without receiving pay. This is unacceptable and fully avoidable. We will continue to bring the clean, nonpartisan CR up for a vote in the hopes that cooler heads will prevail.
Despite the Schumer Shutdown, all five of my offices remain open and working for South Dakota. This past week, we continued our regular business of working to confirm President Trump’s team and meeting with South Dakotans who were in Washington, D.C. More on the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:
South Dakota groups I visited with: South Dakotans with American Optometric Association, Basin Electric Cooperative and South Dakota Rural Electric Association and Truckload Carriers Association.
Met with South Dakotans from: Rapid City, Madison, Brandon, Pierre and Sioux Falls.
Other meetings this past week: Brandon Pugh, Principal Cyber Advisor for the Department of the Army; James Caggy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities nominee; and Mark Uyeda, Commissioner for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Briefings: I attended four briefings including a CIA briefing, a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Closed Briefing, a Senate Armed Servies Committee (SASC) briefing on the Golden Dome for America and one classified SASC briefing.
Votes taken: 13 – As mentioned above, I voted to fund the government three times, and Democrats continued to oppose, placing us in a government shutdown. We will remain in the shutdown until Democrats decide to end the Schumer Shutdown. We also voted to confirm 108 of President Trump’s nominees for positions within his administration.
Legislation introduced: This past week I introduced “Kamisha’s Law”, legislation to eliminate the statute of limitations (SOL) for certain murder charges on federal and tribal lands. The law will remove the SOL for non-capital homicide offenses including second-degree murder as well as murder of federal officers. Read more on it here.
My staff in South Dakota visited: Keystone, Aberdeen, Bristol, Brookings, Hartford and Dallas.
Steps taken: 51,103 steps or 22.28 miles.
Video of the Week:
