[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 162 (Friday, September 18, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E861]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONSTITUTION DAY AND THE PRESIDENT'S ASSAULT ON THE CONSTITUTION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MAXINE WATERS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 18, 2020

  Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Constitution Day. Every 
year, on September 17, Constitution Day reminds us that while we are a 
nation of diverse races, ethnicities, religions, backgrounds, and 
stories, we share at least one commonality: a collective belief in the 
amended document that founded our nation.
  The Constitution represents what our nation strives to be: a country 
of laws, fairness, and justice. A nation that strives to protect the 
rights of each of its citizens and inhabitants and embolden, not 
subvert, the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
  The Founding Fathers always realized that the Constitution is an 
imperfect document, and that is why they allowed it to be amended. It 
has been amended twenty-seven times since its original ratification, 
and there are still people who are proposing additional amendments. The 
Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment 
abolished the provision that counted African American slaves as three-
fifths of a human being. The Nineteenth Amendment gave most, but not 
all, women the right to vote. Some provisions of our Constitution are 
still being debated by the American people, such as the Second 
Amendment.
  The Founding Fathers allowed for these amendments because they 
understood that the Constitution would always represent a vision of a 
more perfect nation, and that vision must necessarily change and evolve 
over time. The Founding Fathers risked their lives to rebel against 
tyranny, and their struggle to win the freedom to write the 
Constitution must serve as a reminder to us that we too, if need be, 
must struggle to defend it.
  We must honor Constitution Day not only by celebrating the document, 
but by pledging to protect it. Because this year, the Constitution is 
in need of our protection.
  The President of the United States took an oath to ``preserve, 
protect and defend the Constitution''. It is an oath required by 
Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. Yet it is an oath that 
has not been taken seriously or upheld for four years now.
  The First Amendment protects our freedom to peacefully assemble. Yet 
this President has deployed unmarked, unidentified federal agents to 
localities to tear gas and attack Americans who are peacefully 
assembling.
  The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, yet an executive 
order was signed this year directing the federal government to 
reconsider the laws governing online speech after the President's 
online posts were marked as false and misleading. The executive order 
was an attempt to silence this President's critics, in clear violation 
of the First Amendment. If a person's right to free speech depends on a 
ruler approving what is said, then free speech does not exist at all.
  The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press. In violation 
of this amendment, the President has called the press the ``enemy of 
the people''.
  Article One of the Constitution contains the Foreign Emoluments 
Clause, which prohibits the President from receiving any gift of value 
without the consent of Congress. This President has never divested from 
any of his holdings and refused to place his assets in a blind trust. 
Funds from foreign governments continue to flow into this President's 
personal accounts, in blatant violation of Article One.
  Article Two, Section Three of the Constitution obligates the 
President to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed'', yet 
this is a President who, on at least ten separate occasions, 
deliberately attempted to interfere with Special Counsel Robert 
Mueller's investigation into collaboration between Russia and the 
President's campaign.
  The Fifth Amendment states that all persons, citizen or otherwise, 
shall be afforded due process of law. This President created a family 
separation policy that tore children from their families and 
indefinitely imprisoned them in cages, in flagrant violation of their 
Fifth Amendment rights.
  The Constitution protects freedom of religion and guarantees all 
people equal protection under the law. In direct violation of these 
freedoms, this President banned people from entering the United States 
based on nothing more than the religion they practice. He even called 
it a ``Muslim Ban''.
  The Constitution states that Congress has the power to establish post 
offices, and this President took an oath to defend this provision of 
the Constitution. In violation of his oath and this constitutional 
provision, this President is making every effort to dismantle the 
agency that, today, is an inseparable part of our shared American 
identity.
  The ``right to vote'' is mentioned five times in the Constitution. 
Yet this President admitted to voter suppression when he stated that he 
did not want to fund the U.S. Postal Service because doing so would 
help Americans vote by mail.
  Upon exiting the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin 
was approached by a group of people asking what sort of government the 
delegates had created. His answer was: ``A republic, if you can keep 
it''. On this Constitution Day, let us remember our responsibility to 
defend the Constitution, so that we may ``keep it''.