Alex Padilla

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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.

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