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Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut, and I support his effort to put constraints and definition on the Insurrection Act.

Here is what is going on. Essentially, this President, from day one, has been overreaching the use of Executive authority and declarations of emergencies. And it is everything from tariffs, where article I gives the Congress authority to pass those or to invoke those, not the President, and now to the use of the Guard as a private police force. And it basically serves the will of the President and for political purposes.

It is extraordinary, in our country, to have the National Guard deployed. It is even more extraordinary to have the military deployed. There are certain circumstances where that can be done, but not at the whim of an Executive who does it for political reasons.

You know, the bottom line here is that the law enforcement responsibilities that are incredibly important for local policing are managed locally, and where you have a President sitting back in the Executive Office, deciding he wants to go to Portland, he wants to go to Los Angeles, he wants to go to Chicago, he wants to go to Baltimore; and then where there is a review by the courts, and they categorically reject what he is presenting as a factual basis to allow him to act; and when there is a rejection, his main adviser, Stephen Miller, calls the judge's ruling legal insurrection.

What you are seeing is an act of political will for a political purpose, not for a public safety purpose--an abuse of this claim of emergency authority of the President.

You know, a couple of things: Trump's decision to federalize the California National Guard was ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that Federal immigration law was enforced. The judge there reviewed the evidence--not the political statements of the President and the White House--and found that there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law. And the judge rejected what he called a ``top-down, systemic effort . . . to use military troops to execute various sectors of federal law.''

That is the job of local law enforcement and local Federal authorities in law enforcement, and to suggest that the concern the Senator has about giving some definition to the Insurrection Act has anything to do with our views on crime, which we are all in favor of reducing--and you, as an attorney general, the senior Senator from Connecticut, did an incredible job on that. Criminals did not like you at all.

So what we have is a situation where, if we are going to level with the American people, you have got a President who is using the authority of his office, his power, to basically make political decisions and then target blue States and do it for his own personal, political reasons, as opposed to public safety reasons.

You know, in Portland, the judge who reviewed that case concluded that the President had violated the 10th Amendment, which protects States' rights.

By the way, that is not nullification. That is rights that States have, which does not include nullifying any valid Federal law.

And the judge concluded with this:

This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs. This historical tradition boils down to a very simple proposition: This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.

Now, you know we saw that video that the White House put out with the President wearing a crown and ``King Trump''; and he is flying a military jet, and he is dumping stuff on the American people who are protesting. The bottom line is there is some reality to that displaying what the attitude of this President is: The King is the law. That is what the President, fundamentally, is saying.

The Constitution is the law, and that is what we are saying.

Make no mistake, there is no limit to what this President will do. He starts in L.A. and goes to Portland. He wants to go to Baltimore. And then, for the purpose of putting down what he claims is lawless behavior, but upon review of local judges who have the evidence, they find that it is nothing out of the ordinary that the local jurisdiction and law enforcement forces can't handle.

What is next? Will we see the military deployed to cities where the President does not like the outcome of the vote in the next election? That is a fair question. That is a fair question.

So the importance of the Senator's bill is that this Congress act to set definitions on what so-called emergencies are and not leave it up to an Executive who has demonstrated repeatedly that he will overreach--that he will overreach.

He has, and he will.

So I join in the effort to present this legislation on the floor and allow us to debate it and to pass it.

With that, I yield to the Senator from Connecticut.

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