Alex Padilla

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I just want to first thank my colleague from California for stating so plainly about the character of the individual we are talking about.

We have justifiable disagreements in this body. We have strong-held beliefs in this body. We have real debates and arguments in this body. But it has been generations and generations and generations since there has been violence in this body.

I stand with my back toward the Chamber where there was the caning of Sumner during the slavery debates, and a House Member came over and beat a U.S. Senator within an inch of his life.

You see, there is this decorum here where we have this mutual respect, and we understand violence is absolutely unacceptable.

And if there is anybody that shows that kind of decency and that kind of peace, my colleague from California put it so plainly--Alex Padilla, like many of my colleagues, even across the aisle--he is one of the people of true character here. I think that is why today has hurt so many of us personally is because of what this breach of this body actually means to all of us.

We know of dangers of violence in a democracy and the insidiousness that violence presents or that fear of violent reprisal presents.

Jefferson said it so eloquently:

When people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears [its] people, there is liberty.

What is so disturbing when you see a Member of this body thrown to the floor, a knee on his shoulder, arms being wrenched behind him after he has identified himself as a U.S. Senator is literally what Alex Padilla said.

I am going to pull from what I know he has already said publicly, but this is what he also has written privately.

Alex Padilla says:

If [this is] what they do to a . . . Senator with a question, imagine what they [are doing] to farm workers, day laborers, cooks, and [the] other [of the] nonviolent immigrants they are targeting.

You see, Alex Padilla knows something about this country, which is that we are all, as Martin Luther King so eloquently wrote in those letters from the Birmingham Jail, when he was jailed for his nonviolent civil disobedience--what Alex Padilla knows is what King said so eloquently; that we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied to a common garment of destiny that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, that when you have a President that so exceeds his constitutional authority, that he begins to do things to infringe upon the fundamental rights and securities of other Americans, it is a threat to all Americans.

This is why right across the way--I can almost see it looking through these windows--why the Supreme Court, with nominees from both parties, with three Donald Trump appointees on it, ruled 9 to 0 in support of the due process rights of someone in our country that was not even a citizen of this Nation--because in the Constitution, using the words ``any Person,'' knowing that if you erode the due process rights of anybody in this Nation, it is a threat to the due process rights of everyone in this Nation.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Understand what we saw today: A U.S. Senator forcibly removed from a room in a Federal building--a Federal official forcibly removed from a Federal building after he identified himself as a U.S. Senator. But after he was out of that building, they did not stop there. They drove our colleague to his knees and then forcibly shoved him upon his face, wrenched his arms behind him, and Alex Padilla writes: If they do that me, what are they doing to farmworkers and cooks and domestics?

What are they doing to other people? What does that mean if they are using the violent force of government unjustly against him? This is a breach. This body has not seen such a breach in my lifetime or longer where the executive has treated an honorable Member of this body in this way.

That should be enough, but our colleague correctly points out that if we are in an environment where that is happening to a U.S. Senator, what does it say--if the Government of the United States is unjustly taking violent action against a U.S. Senator, dear God, what does it mean for other Americans? That is what Alex Padilla asked today.

Now, I will tell you this: This is not an isolated incident. That is the challenge. We have already seen the actions taken against a mayor, a local government official who himself was forcibly handcuffed, dragged into a police vehicle, held for hours as a prisoner, and then, when he finally got before a judge, that judge reprimanded this administration for an abuse of their power.

Alex Padilla sees this with the violation of the due process rights of individuals going on in this country. Alex Padilla sees this with a mayor in America unjustly incarcerated, handcuffed, held.

This is the challenge we have in this moment.

I love this quote by my favorite author, James Baldwin, who wrote this letter the night authorities came and arrested Angela Davis.

He said:

If they come for you in the morning, then they will come for me at night.

This administration, in its abuse of power, in the audacity of handcuffing, of violently assaulting, of forcibly pushing to his knees and onto his stomach a U.S. Senator--what does that say?

We all gather right there as Senators to raise our hand and swear our oath to uphold the Constitution, but we are not the only ones. Members of the Supreme Court do that. They are not the only ones with Members of this body; administrative officials do that as well. We are bound by the laws of this land.

The terrifying thing for every American should be a government that is not restrained by the law, a government that misuses its power--and not just its power; its power to use violence unjustly against its citizenry. That is when we slip away from our democratic ideals, from our constitutional principles, and slide towards an authoritarian government that wants to make its people heel before them, kneel before them.

That is what I physically saw with my own eyes--a Member of this body being driven to his knees for asking a question, for standing up to speak truth to power. What was the response? The response was violence--being dragged out of that room, being forced to his knees, being thrown prostrate, and being handcuffed.

Here is the thing that frustrates me the most: Is this another day where the lead stories will be about the actions of this administration? We have seen a week where it is violating a tradition that has gone back before I was born where the Federal Government activating Federal troops in a community goes through--in fact, I know the statute: title 10, section 12406--that they should go through the Governors, work in coordination with them. But, no, this was a provocative incident, moving military troops at the expense of taxpayers into a community where even the leader of the police department says this is wrong.

All of this, from the beginning of our week to this unprecedented action of violently removing a U.S. Senator from a Federal building, from a room, thrown upon the ground, driven to his knees, and handcuffed--this is all purposefully being done in our country by a President that has a different view of his authorities as President; that if a judge criticizes him, he believes it is wrong.

He drew reprimand from the Supreme Court for his calling out Justices whose opinions he disagrees with. This is a President that doesn't believe in the checks and balances of our Constitution.

But the frustrating thing about all of this is that it is distracting us--this dangerous, violent distraction--from the bill we should be discussing on this floor about the ripping away of healthcare from millions of Americans, the cutting of food stamps for millions of children, the cutting of services for disabled Americans, the cutting of support for our senior citizens.

This monumental moment, the biggest transfer of wealth from working people in America to millionaires and billionaires; this moment that should be dominating our attention and our focus; this imminent bill that is being debated and discussed here in the Senate right now that has such incredible consequences, putting $2.4 trillion more of debt in our country and raising the energy costs on the average American by hundreds of dollars; this bill that would raise the premiums of people in our Nation by hundreds of dollars; this bill that merits debate and discussion because it is so violative of our common values; this bill that takes food away from the hungry, healthcare away from the sick, and takes working people and makes their challenges harder, all to give more tax cuts to billionaires and drives up our deficit by the trillions--that should be the central conversation in our country.

But this President, almost as if he knows the unpopularity of his bill, the betrayal of his bill, is misusing, abusing his powers and trying to change the conversation in the most despicable of ways; abusing his authority, treading on our traditions, violating our Constitution, and now perhaps one of the greatest violent assaults on a Member of this body by the executive.

This is not metaphorical; this is literal. A Member of this body, after identifying himself, was physically and forcibly dragged out of a room in a Federal building, and then, when the doors were closed--you can see it on the camera--the Federal Government, the executive branch, taking a Member of this body, a Member of the U.S. Senate, a coequal branch of our government, and driving that man to his knees, slamming him upon his face, and wrenching his arms behind his back. That is what we are talking about in this body right now.

This is a dangerous time in America. When the President from the Oval Office says almost daringly ``Do not protest my parade,'' warns people about protests--and this is the thing the President of the United States doesn't understand about this country: When a President is violating norms and traditions and violating our Constitution, dissent is not unpatriotic; protest is not un-American; silence is unpatriotic.

This is a time where protest is justified. Peaceful protest is necessary and vital. This is a time where speaking up and exercising your constitutional principles--like freedom of speech, like freedom of assembly, like the right to petition your government--is demanded by our democracy.

When you have a President that so flagrantly violates the checks and balances--so much so that the authorities today kept a Senator from stepping forward and asking questions to an executive official and is met by violence--this is exactly the time that our Founders saw that we must stand up and speak up and protest peacefully and let our voices be heard because silence in a time like this is complicity.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have to see this. It doesn't take that much mental acuity to understand that if this was the Biden administration or the Obama administration and an official used their security detail to put another person in this body--to put a Senator from the other side of the aisle on their knees and in handcuffs, we would see outrage.

This is not about left or right; this is about right or wrong. And today, we saw a deep, grave wrong heaped upon not just this body but, as Alex Padilla wrote so eloquently, upon the ideals. Because if you could do this to a U.S. Senator, then you can do it to another American.

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