Alex Padilla

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, I am sure the American people right now are just starting to see what happened to the U.S. Senator from California--the senior Senator from California--Alex Padilla. He is at a press conference in California, where the Secretary of Homeland Security is, and he wants to ask some questions, with all that is going on in California. Look, I don't know what all happened, but Federal agents took him down--took down a U.S. Senator--saying that they are doing their job.

Why aren't more people down here speaking up about this nonsense?

This is ridiculous. I would use some other language, but I would probably get tossed off the floor right now.

Growing up on a small farm and cleaning a barn, my dad taught me how to take a shovel to all the stuff that came out of the animals. You know what that is called. I know what it is called. And some of the animals that did that were males. They were bulls. And the stuff that came out of them has a few names to it. I will call it manure today.

This is nonsense. This is awful. How can these Federal agents get away with this?

Is the President of the United States telling folks to go down and start arresting U.S. Senators, taking them down to the floor? Is that what we have come to, the executive branch doing this to our colleagues?

This is a Democrat. What happens when it happens to a Republican? Will I hear from my Republican colleagues then to say: No, we should not do this, Mr. President. Back down. Back off. You are wrong.

Will someone here have the backbone to tell the President of the United States: You crossed the line. Stop it.

I am so disappointed, so disappointed. And as a Latino U.S. Senator, for this to happen to another Hispanic here--there are several of us who are Hispanics here, Democrats and Republicans. Speak up.

When one of my predecessors was here, Dennis Chavez, there were places he could not eat in this town because of the color of his skin, because he was from a State called New Mexico.

Are we going to use our voices? Are we better than this in the United States of America? Or are we going to show all the other folks in the world who choose to do this to the people who were duly elected by their people: No, just go arrest them. Throw them down on their face. Treat them like garbage.

We are better than this in America, you all. We have got to speak up. I hope, by tonight, every Democrat and Republican Member of this body has the courage to say something. This has gone too far. It is not right.

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