[ [link removed] ]Adam Schiff for Senate




John,

Today was a bad day for the country. And I won't sugar coat it, today was
also a bad day for the Democratic Party. Let me explain.

Today the Senate voted on a six-month continuing resolution. It passed,
giving Donald Trump six more months to continue doing what he's doing:
tearing down our agencies, firing federal workers, cutting Medicaid,
closing Social Security offices, laying off veterans.

Let me be clear: I voted against this bill and fought as hard as I could
to convince my colleagues to do the same. But it narrowly passed with a 54
to 46 vote. And by doing so, Congress gave Trump six more months to
continue down this destructive path.

We and the Congress gave up our authority, gave up our power to allow him
to continue to do this because we feared something worse if we refused.

Now I made it clear, I think that was the wrong judgment. I strongly
oppose this CR, but nevertheless, it passed.

Why is this a bad day for the country?

We have to step back and understand what our Founders did when they
established the Constitution and our set of checks and balances.

Our founders understood that, as Madison said, “Men were no angels.” If
they were angels, there would be no need for government.

So, we needed a government. But we also needed to make sure that that
government divided up power so that no one could become too powerful.
Understanding the nature of human nature, that the accretion of power can
corrupt human nature. They split up the power between the different
branches of government – between the executive, the legislative, and the
judiciary, and that worked well for 200 years.

Until it started to break down. Until institutions started to – on their
own – give up some of their authority.

Now, the founders expected that we would jealously guard our own
institutions. That ambition would be made to check ambition. So the
ambition of people in the legislative branch would check the ambition of
people in the executive branch. And the ambition of people in the judicial
branch would be a check on both the other branches.

But that has broken down in favor of the ambition of a president of one’s
own party. And so we have seen Republicans in the House and Senate willing
to give up their authority to this president because they think this
president will do their will. Or because they fear the president will
punish them for dissenting.

The perfect test case was in this CR: Republicans giving up the power of
Congress to stop this administration from wrecking the economy with its
destructive tariffs.

Why on earth would Congress give up that power?

Because they don't want to have to vote on it themselves. Because they're
afraid that if they do vote on it and they affirm what Donald Trump is
doing, they will pay a price with their voters. So they say, we would just
rather not have that power anymore. We will give it to you, Donald Trump.

That is a bad day for the United States, and a bad day for the balance of
power.

We are ceding our authority. We are concentrating it further in the
executive. And if there was any executive that could not be trusted with
any more power, it is Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court too has given up its authority by handing the president
what he wanted, which was a decision giving him absolute immunity from
prosecution, putting him above the rule of law.

So again I will say: it's a bad day for the United States of America.

But it's also a bad day for the Democratic Party. We are in the minority
in the House. We're in the minority in the Senate. We don't control the
White House. We certainly don't control the majority opinion on the
Supreme Court. The only hope that we have of standing up to this
president, of pushing back against the destructive actions he's taking is
if we stay together.

In the House, Democrats stayed together. We did not stay together in the
Senate.

Now I understand many of my colleagues who voted the other way than I did
today firmly hold the conviction that voting for it was the lesser of two
evils. And look, we are all peering through the glass darkly. We are all
trying to imagine the future, if this passes or if this fails.

But one thing is very clear, and that is without unity, without common
agreement between Democrats in the House and in the Senate and amongst
ourselves, we have no power to stop this president. This must not happen
again.

But it will take more than Democratic unity in the Congress to stop this
president from tearing up our country.

It will require much more. It will require all of us, it will require that
reporters told not to write stories by their newspaper for fear of the
president's reaction, choose to speak publicly, risk firing or
resignation. That subscribers make their views known when a newspaper
gives up its editorial independence. It will require customers to make
their views known when corporations cater to the president. It will
require universities to stick together when the president goes after one
university, to understand that all universities are in the same boat. It
will require prosecutors to quit before they bring false charges against
political enemies of the president.

It will require all of us. It will require you in your personal capacity,
to speak out in your workplace, in your home with your neighbors. It will
require all of us to defend our First Amendment rights, our right to
choose who will govern us, and place limits on the power of those who do.
It will require all of us.

92 years ago, on the 53rd day into a new chancellorship, the German
parliament decided to give up its authority to the new chancellor, to
allow the new chancellor to govern by decree.

Today is the 53rd day of the Trump administration.

Now we have not decided to fully give up our power to this president, but
we took a tragic step in that direction today.

We must not take that step again. Thank you.

— Adam Schiff

 

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|[ [link removed] ]Senator Adam Schiff is fighting back against Elon Musk, Donald Trump,|
| and MAGA Republicans’ attempts to seize power. If you’re able, make a |
|donation to fuel Adam’s fight for truth, accountability, and honesty in |
| the U.S. Senate. |
| |
| [ [link removed] ]DONATE |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+




135 E. Olive Ave., #750 Burbank CA, 91502

[ [link removed] ]www.adamschiff.com | [ mailto:[email protected] ][email protected] | [ [link removed] ]Privacy Policy

PAID FOR AND AUTHORIZED BY SCHIFF FOR SENATE



You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time:
[link removed]