[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 101 (Thursday, June 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3379-S3380]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ALEX PADILLA

  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?

[[Page S3380]]

  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.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

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