Why I Came to Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. CROW. Mr. Speaker, almost 7 years ago, I came to Congress to serve my community, my State, my fellow veterans, and the country that I deeply love in a different way than I served it on the battlefield. When I put the uniform on as a teenager, I swore an oath to the Constitution, and I stand here today to uphold that oath.

I came here to represent a State that has been racked with trauma: Columbine, Aurora Theater, Club Q, Boulder, and, most recently, Evergreen High.

I came here because, like so many of my fellow veterans, I harbor deep resentment for our wars that cost thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and decades of lost opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I came here because the American working class has been gutted, left behind, and excluded from the American Dream, while the elites grow wealthier than ever.

Together with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, I came to Congress, assuming that we could solve these problems together. We could have open and safe debates in a free society.

Instead, I have seen two impeachments, an insurrection, a pandemic, cyberattacks, social unrest, political assassinations, mass shooting after mass shooting, wars, tumultuous elections, and a rapid collapse of our social fabric.

In the last 9 months, the Republican majority has given up the power and the responsibility of Congress to serve the American people and has turned this Congress into nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump.

We should do what we were sent here to do. We should make people's lives better, but the Republican majority has stopped that. The lives of average Americans everywhere are getting much worse.

Prices are skyrocketing. Homes are unaffordable. Consumer debt is surging. Unemployment is rising. Credit scores are plummeting. Family farms are going under. Gun violence continues to devastate our schools and our towns.

While Americans struggle, Donald Trump and his family are cashing in at our expense. They accept endless gifts from businesses and foreign nations, including a $400 million jet. Individuals are charged $500,000 to join a private club for access to Trump officials.

Mar-a-Lago and the White House Rose Garden have been turned into a pay-to-play destination for the wealthy and well-connected. Meme coins are issued so investors and foreign individuals can buy influence and personally enrich the President and his family. All of this has added billions of dollars to Trump's wealth since becoming President.

While Americans get poorer and Trump gets richer, something darker is happening. The walls of our democracy are being disassembled brick by brick. Federal troops are patrolling our streets to intimate and instill fear. Senators and Members of Congress are thrown to the ground, handcuffed, arrested, and intimidated. They are firing our most experienced generals and admirals who may simply disagree with the President.

They are purging military officials who find themselves on the wrong side of the President's cronies. They are threatening American cities with war and violence. They are attacking civil society, journalists, and public servants who show independence or speak freely.

They are censoring media because someone dares to question or make a joke about the President. They are snatching people off the streets with masked agents in unmarked vehicles. They are forcing American troops to get on their knees and roll out the red carpet for a brutal dictator. They are now using a terrible tragedy to pit Americans against one another and grab power.

Mr. Speaker, political violence in every form is abhorrent. I condemn every single act of political violence, regardless of its source or its motivation.

I went to war three times for this country to defend the Constitution and the rights of people to say things I might disagree with. The right of every American to speak freely, peacefully, organize, and protest is fundamental to who we are. After all, what is more American than the ability to question authority? Questioning authority is, in fact, how we came to be a Nation.

We all lose when free and open debate is replaced with violence or threats. We must not lose our right and our responsibility to speak up against abuses of authority.

Power in America has always been cyclical. At one time, one party is in power. The next moment, another is. That is why we must all protect it all of the time and not just when it is convenient for us.

Everyone must defend the ability of a minority, Republican or Democrat, to question and protest, because at some point, we will need that right. That is why an attack on one person's freedom is an attack on all of us.

That is exactly what Donald Trump is doing. He is attacking all of our rights. Donald Trump and his cronies are now labeling those who disagree with him terrorists, scum, and enemies of the State. Only they will decide what is hateful. Only they will decide what poses a threat. Only they will decide who can speak and who will be silenced.

If anyone thinks they are safe just because it is happening to someone else this time, they are not paying attention to history. Donald Trump and his cronies have attacked anyone, including rightwing media and politicians, simply for questioning them.

The point for Trump is not to advance an ideology. It is to silence dissent and anyone who would dare speak up. When dissent is silenced, they can turn our government and weaponize it into an institution that serves only Donald Trump and enriches those who are loyal to him.

In a system where the rule of law is replaced with raw power and governed by grievance, greed, cruelty, and impunity, nobody is safe.

This is not just a story of a Presidential power grab because that was envisioned by our Constitution. That is why it was written the way it was. It was written to prevent power grabs. There are people with power right now allowing this to happen.

As Trump tramples on the Constitution, some of our most elite and powerful individuals and institutions are failing to defend our democracy. Some of our Nation's most powerful law firms have bent the knee. Some of our finest universities are buckling. Some of our most powerful CEOs have capitulated. Some of our largest media companies are simply surrendering.

If those with power and influence want to sell off our rights and freedoms to enrich themselves, then Americans should make it clear that cowardice and greed will fail. We will not shop at their stores. We will not tune in to their TV and radio stations. We won't send our kids and our money to their universities. We won't use their services if they are going to enable our slide to authoritarianism. What makes their cowardice and greed so stark is the courage we have seen from everyday Americans.

When ICE agents started interrogating kids on a baseball diamond in Harlem, Coach Youman Wilder was the only thing that stood between those agents and his young players. Despite threats, he stood up and told the agents that they had no right to speak to those kids. The agents left. In the moment, Wilder told himself he was willing to die to make sure those kids got home.

In Twisp, Washington, a small, rural town that Trump won last November, hundreds of residents gather every Saturday to protest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. These are cuts that will devastate their community. One resident, a school teacher of over 30 years, said they protest because: ``Democracy only works if we work it.''

In April, millions took to the streets to peacefully protest. We saw massive demonstrations nationwide in cities big and small. In Cortez, Colorado, a population of 9,000, 600 people showed up. In Gardiner, Montana, a population of 800, 75 people made their voices heard. In Daleville, Alabama, home to 5,000, 100 members of the community showed up and spoke out.

Here in Washington, D.C., as the National Guard is patrolling, and ICE agents are dramatically ramping up raids across the city, citizens are starting Instagram pages and Facebook groups to inform fellow citizens of their rights. Parents are patrolling schoolyards to protect the rights of students and other parents. Around the country journalists are investigating and relentlessly searching for and reporting the truth, despite threats to them and their family.

There is courage everywhere we look. We have not yet lost our power. So many Americans have been sounding the alarm bell for a long time, and they have been right.

We have now reached the inflection point.

Now is the time for us to stand firm and for us to stand with them, and for all of us to stand with those defending democracy, defending free speech, defending freedom of religion, defending due process, defending the rule of law, defending the right of schoolchildren to learn without fear of being shot, and defending government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I have taken many oaths to protect and defend our country and our Constitution, first as a soldier and now as a Member of Congress.

I often think back to the start of my service to this Nation as a young paratrooper leading an infantry platoon in the invasion of Iraq. I think about the faces of those young men whom I was responsible for, Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, from the North, from the South, East, and West, from farms and from cities, rich and poor.

When I think of America, I still think of those young paratroopers and how we came together despite our differences. We served together, we fought together, and we found great strength in one another.

That is America.

There is a tradition in the paratroopers that the leader of the unit jumps out of the plane first and then the others follow.

Mr. Speaker, I am ready to jump.

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