[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 101 (Thursday, June 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3380-S3382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ALEX PADILLA
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, Senator Booker and I have now spoken
multiple times on the floor. The Senator from California has been here
multiple times. We are doing so because we saw the look in our
colleague's eyes as he was being violently thrown out of that room. You
lost contact with his eyes in the hallway as he
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was being pushed stomach-down onto the ground and handcuffed.
One of our colleagues suggested that Senator Padilla got what he
wanted. If you saw Senator Padilla's eyes, if you saw Alex's eyes as he
was being pushed out of that room, you saw a man who did not expect to
be treated that way. He thought that he was coming to register his
dissent, his objection, to something deeply serious and illegal that
was happening in his State. He had a responsibility as a Senator to
speak truth to power.
So we are here on this floor speaking repeatedly in hopes that at
some point, some of our Republican colleagues, whether here or in other
public statements, will register some degree of concern for what
happened to their colleague.
We lose our democracy if we lose our ability to dissent.
In 1722, in a newspaper started in Boston by the name of the New-
England Courant--one of the country's first newspapers--a series of
essays began to appear that were speaking to some really radical ideas
for 1722. This is 20 years before Thomas Jefferson was born. This was
50 years before Thomas Paine wrote ``Common Sense.''
This is 1722, and the author's name is Silence Dogood. Silence Dogood
writes in the New-England Courant:
Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin
by subduing the Freeness of speech; a Thing terrible to
Publick Traytors.
Silence goes on to say:
This sacred Privilege [of free speech] is so essential to
free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the
Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched
Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can
scarce call any Thing . . . his own.
In 1722, this was a radical idea, this idea that a tyrant must
control the freedom of thought with violence in order to maintain
control of the people.
The New-England Courant was owned by a man named James Franklin, and
he probably didn't know that Silence Dogood was a pseudonym for his 16-
year-old brother named Benjamin Franklin. That is Benjamin Franklin
writing in 1722, 16 years old.
Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin
by subduing the [Freedom] of Speech.
What happened to Senator Padilla today, it does stand in context. I
say again, it does matter that on that day in which violence was used
against the U.S. Capitol as a means to try to upset our democracy was
cheered on by a President who then pardoned those violent rioters.
It stands in the context of the arrest of a mayor in New Jersey and a
Congressperson seeking to do normal and regular oversight. It stands in
context with the use of the FCC to try to intimidate and harass news
stations that carry coverage unfavorable to the President and stands in
context of the banning of outlets having access to the White House or
the Pentagon simply because they don't write things that are favorable
to the President or use terms that are favorable to the President.
If we lose our democracy, it is not likely that there is going to be
this one moment, this one day, this one fight. It won't be like other
revolutions where the Parliament building gets burned down or a coup
occurs. No. It will be that, over time, the message has been sent that
if you speak up against the government, there is a price to be paid,
and that price involves violence. But if you use violence on behalf of
the government, it will be excused.
And so why we are still on this floor tonight is, sure, we have
immense respect for our colleague, and I believe he has respect across
the aisle. Senator Padilla is a decent human servant who doesn't
deserve to be treated that way. We are here because he is our friend
and our colleague. But we are also here because too many in this body
take for granted that this democracy is natural, that it is just going
to hang around, no matter the threats.
The effort that this administration is undergoing to excuse and
normalize violence when it happens in advancement of the
administration's political priorities and then to suppress nonviolent
speech in a multitude of ways when it objects to this administration's
priorities, it sends a message to the public about what you can get
away with and what you can't get away with.
Now, I don't think this will be the result. I don't think the
American people will be bullied into silence. I do not believe they
will watch that clip of Alex Padilla being forced to the ground and
handcuffed and decide to stay home. No, I think, in fact, the opposite
will likely happen. I think more Americans will be out there protesting
this government. I think more Americans will decide to be present this
weekend, to stand up for the right of free speech.
But if that were to be the case, it would be the exception to the
historical rule, because in most countries when a ruler uses violence
in order to suppress dissent, it works. People decide that they don't
want to risk the fate of Alex Padilla. They don't want to be on the
ground with their hands forced behind them and put into handcuffs. They
stay home, and they just let the tyranny wash over them, their
community, and their country.
We are not there yet. I don't mean to exercise hyperbole. What I seek
to say is that we should not take this democracy for granted and that
there can be--history tells us there often is--a deep impact when
violence is used against those who are protesting the regime. It
becomes normalized. And it ends up scaring many people into a dissent
away from civic participation, and that is where our democracy dies.
This sacred privilege, the privilege of free speech, the privilege to
protest your government--says 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin--``is so
essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the
Freedom of Speech always go together.''
Men cannot be prosperous, he says, without having access to the
freedom of expression.
Senator Padilla was doing his job. Sure, you can decide that he was
being disrespectful. That is not illegal. You could decide that he, in
the alternative, should have waited until the press conference was
over. But nothing he did warranted the treatment he got.
And when you stand it side by side with the pardoning of the January
6 protesters, the attempt to bully the free press into toeing the
administration's line, the deployment of the National Guard and the
Marines to a protest in California that was largely peaceful and,
basically, just encompassed 1 or 2 square blocks, nobody mistakes what
that agenda is about. That agenda is about trying to bully the American
people into silence.
And once again, the first several comments from our colleagues
justifying the handcuffing and violence to Senator Padilla simply
because they believe he was disrespectful paints a really dangerous
picture of where we are headed.
Senator Booker is right. The focus should be on the violence that is
being done to the American people's healthcare right now. We are
debating a bill right now, as we speak, to rip healthcare away from
upwards of 15 million Americans. That is extraordinary. That is a
healthcare catastrophe. That is not just 15 million people losing their
healthcare. That is hospitals, drug treatment centers, health clinics
shutting down when you pull almost a trillion dollars out of the
Medicaid system.
There is a new budget analysis today that shows that the poorest 30
percent of the country, 40 percent of the country, will be poorer after
this bill passes, just so that the richest 10 or 20 percent can get a
massive new tax cut. In fact, the richest people in this country will
get an average $270,000 tax cut. Literally, a transfer of wealth from
the poorest people in this country--people who are working minimum wage
jobs are going to be poorer after having passed this bill in order to
enrich the folks who are doing super well, and we are going to add $3
trillion to the deficit--just going to put it on our kids' credit card.
That is, maybe, the most unpopular piece of legislation that has ever
come before the U.S. Senate. That is an agenda that you can probably
only impose on the Nation by force--by force--because if people have
the right to protest, if they have the ability to stand up to the most
massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the
rich in the history of the country, it might not pass. That protest
movement might be big enough in order to change the minds of enough
Members of this body so that that agenda might pass.
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It may be that that bill is so unpopular that the only way that you
can get it to pass is by using violence and the threat of violence to
suppress protest and free speech.
So we are still here, hours after this incident, because we care
about our colleague, because we believe this is ultimately going to do
immense damage to this institution that we love.
I have done hard work with many of my Republican colleagues. I deeply
care about many of my Republican colleagues. I don't know all of them
well, but I know enough of them to know that there are patriots; there
are people who believe that America matters more than our party.
I showed that video to several of my Republican colleagues as we were
leaving the Chamber today. I saw their jaws drop. I know their human
reaction to what they saw. But I also know that there is a tendency in
this version of the Republican party to circle the wagons around one
message. If Democrats say X, then Republicans have to say Y.
That doesn't have to be the case every time. It just doesn't.
There can be true things. And a true thing is this: That was an
excessive, impermissible amount of force that was used on Senator
Padilla today. We can say that together.
Even if you agree with the President on his decision to deploy the
National Guard, even if you hate every single one of those protesters,
even if you don't like Senator Padilla--which is hard because he is a
freaking hard guy not to like. But even if you believe all those
things, you can say that what happened today is not all right and that
the White House should admit that; that there should be an apology; and
that there should be protocols set in place to make sure that if a U.S.
Senator shows up to a public event--he didn't bust into a private
meeting. This was a press conference designed to be public, to transmit
public information. He wanted to make sure that that was accurate
information. Maybe you don't like the way that he did it, but what he
did is not illegal. What he did does not deserve that treatment. We can
decide that that is wrong. We can recognize the danger to this concept
of free speech, defended in 1722 by a 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin, is
serious enough for us to speak together with one voice.
So my Republican colleagues may think that we are belaboring the
point, but this is an important moment for the Senate and for the
Nation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
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