ICYMI Video: Senate Republicans Block Blumenthal's Legislation to Check Presidential Authority Under the Insurrection Act
[WASHINGTON, DC] – In case you missed it, Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a unanimous consent request by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to pass legislation that would limit the President’s far-reaching authority under the centuries-old Insurrection Act. As President Trump continues his wrongful and dangerous deployment of National Guard troops into American cities, Blumenthal sought passage of his legislation to reform the Insurrection Act that gives the President vast powers to deploy troops – either with or without the request of a state – to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
When requesting unanimous consent to pass his legislation, Blumenthal cited President Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act if legal challenges to his deployment of National Guard troops prevail: “The danger of the President invoking the Insurrection Act is no longer hypothetical or abstract. It is real. It’s happening now. The President shows no signs of stopping deployments. They are becoming more widespread, not less. The President’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act is real. It has to be taken as real. And I believe the courts will continue to rule against him and that he may well use the Insurrection Act as a weapon to expand his deployments and turn these cities and states into armed camps and police states.”
Laying out the guardrails that his Insurrection Act of 2025 would create, Blumenthal continued, “We’re here because of the need to specify in the Insurrection Act when it can be invoked, and this measure that I have reintroduced would very simply create checks and balances and limit the Executive’s authority to deploy troops domestically. It wouldn’t interfere at all or relate to his use of troops abroad, outside the boundaries and borders of the United States. It allows Congress to support the President’s decision to extend the deployment through a joint resolution of approval, but it requires that he come to Congress for approval after a certain period of time.”
“We can protect our civil liberties, our communities, and our military by imposing these checks and balances in the Insurrection Act that I have submitted. It well serves the interests of our states, indeed our states’ rights, our military, and the traditions and ethos of our great National Guard and active-duty military, and it serves the American people in preserving rights and liberties that our founders were zealous to protect,” Blumenthal concluded.
Blumenthal first introduced legislation to restrict the President’s authority under the Insurrection Act in 2020. The current law has been used sparingly by other presidents given the potential for the military to escalate tensions, rather than restore order, during a domestic crisis. More information about Blumenthal’s legislation is available here.
The full transcript of Blumenthal’s remarks on the Senate Floor is available below. A video of Blumenthal’s remarks is available here.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, Americans are watching members of the military patrolling the streets of major cities in the United States of America. I never thought I would utter those words anywhere, let alone on the Floor of the United States Senate. Members of the military, in our neighborhoods, on our streets, patrolling, under authority—what authority? That’s the question. That authority has been challenged, and it will continue under challenge because the courts are continuing to decide whether Donald Trump has turned the National Guard into an illegal police force, in effect to serve his political end and personal whim.
But there is no question as to the facts that members of the military are in major cities, despite clear and consistent objections—from governors, from mayors, from police chiefs, from community groups, from citizens across the United States, and yes, from Members of the United States Senate. Today in DC, California, Oregon, and Illinois, these national guardsmen are not only patrolling streets, they are aiding and supporting ICE crackdowns—again, despite challenges to their legality.
Now, three district courts, in California, Oregon, and Illinois, have said it’s illegal. One court of appeals has allowed it to go partially forward, but there remains a court order stopping it in Illinois. The litigation will go forward.
But here is the threat, the really dire and dangerous threat—President Trump has said that if those challenges prevail, he will invoke the Insurrection Act. He has said if courts, quote, courts or governors delay the deployment, he will invoke an Act that is 217 years old, which was written after the Whiskey Rebellion and the Battle of Wabash, when local police simply didn't exist in most places and were overrun in those areas by the farmers who were objecting to federal taxes. That original Insurrection Act was written at a time when police forces were limited and poorly equipped, and the Insurrection Act provided for federal force when a genuine insurrection, rebellion, armed violence was occurring beyond the control of local or state officials. And that is the point here.
The founders found abhorrent the idea that there be a standing military force that could somehow act as a policing mechanism. In fact, they objected, many of them, to a standing army at all. But the concept of a military force defending the United States was that it be aimed at foreign adversaries and enemies. The threats from abroad were its target—not internal policing, not problems of law enforcement within the homeland. And that is precisely what President Trump is using the military now to do. A violation of the Constitution, the spirit and purpose of the Insurrection Act, and the modern day realities of law enforcement. Those realities are that police forces are the ones equipped and trained to contain the kinds of potential threats in cities or towns or states that purportedly Donald Trump wants to use the military to quell. Well, the simple fact is, on the streets, in those neighborhoods, there is no threat of violence that justifies these kinds of police state tactics. The court in Oregon specifically found that in the last weeks and couple of months there has been no violence on any widespread scale. And the same findings, more or less, have been done by courts in other jurisdictions. But even if there were, police forces there have state-of-the-art weapons, equipment, analysis tools, communication platforms, and training, all that is necessary to do the job of addressing the kind of threat or violence that President Trump seems to feel exists there.
There was no such professional force, locally or statewide, when the 9th Congress passed the original Insurrection Act. Today in the 119th Congress, the problems that law enforcement was designed to address simply are no longer commensurate with the dangers it is creating now.
And I will note that I introduced the Insurrection Act of 2020 before the current Administration took office. In fact, a Democrat was President at the time. But after the President’s decision to deploy active-duty Marines, along with the National Guard in Los Angeles, I reintroduced this legislation with my colleagues from California and 16 other states. The danger of the President invoking the Insurrection Act is no longer hypothetical or abstract. It is real. It’s happening now. The President shows no signs of stopping deployments. They are becoming more widespread, not less. The President’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act is real. It has to be taken as real. And I believe the courts will continue to rule against him and that he may well use the Insurrection Act as a weapon to expand his deployments and turn these cities and states into armed camps and police states.
He will, in short, circumvent both Congress and the judicial system because of the current breadth and expansive powers under the Insurrection Act. When it was written, there was no danger of abuse. Now there is. When 600 armed rebels attacked government troops during the Whiskey Rebellion, there was a need for federal troops there. Nearly 1,000 federal troops, in fact, died at the Battle of Wabash. We are not seeing armed rebels organized to resist federal taxes coming against local police. We're not seeing the troops in a pitched battle with organized rebels here in DC or in Portland or Chicago. What we are seeing is members of the military going through streets in armed vehicles enabling ICE to crack down.
Now, let’s be clear. This issue is unrelated to enforcement of our immigration laws. We can advocate strongly that immigration laws be vigorously pursued and prosecuted. It just shouldn't be done by the United States military. We have ICE to do it, and we can be critical of ICE for the kind of masked raids and unmarked cars that occurred just recently in an apartment building in Chicago taking citizens as well as immigrants out of their apartments.
We’re here because of the need to specify in the Insurrection Act when it can be invoked, and this measure that I have reintroduced would very simply create checks and balances and limit the Executive’s authority to deploy troops domestically. It wouldn’t interfere at all or relate to his use of troops abroad, outside the boundaries and borders of the United States. It allows Congress to support the President’s decision to extend the deployment through a joint resolution of approval, but it requires that he come to Congress for approval after a certain period of time. It requires the Attorney General to certify that alternatives are inefficient and for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to detail the size, the scope, and the expected duration of deployment and certify that the forces to be deployed can execute the mission. And it provides for judicial review. It ensures that courts can prohibit flagrant abuse, not substituting their judgment for the President’s, but review whether there is a colorable basis for this kind of action.
And finally, it clarifies that the original Insurrection Act does not allow the President to suspend habeas corpus and impose martial law or deputize privatize citizens—the President should have that power to use our military to quell a genuine rebellion, organized in arm, creating violence that cannot be contained by local and state police. It should not enable him to deploy our military willy-nilly because of his unbridled authority under the current law.
I have the utmost respect for our National Guard, our Connecticut National Guard, as I say, when you call out the National Guard, you call out America. And they should not be abused to police their fellow citizens to act as local police in missions that they are not trained or equipped to handle.
I fear for the future of our National Guard and the future of our military if the President is emboldened or enabled to use them for partisan political purposes. He has already, I fear, damaged the credibility and trust in our military by deploying them in the way that he has done already. Our National Guard is there when disaster strikes. They help to clear the roads and enable people to go back to their homes. I've seen them in the wake of natural catastrophes. They're lifesavers, literally for the people of Connecticut, and I'm sure for others all around America. They are vital to our defense when they are deployed abroad under the President's authority to use them abroad against our enemies as they are now deployed from Connecticut and elsewhere all around the globe. But we need to stem the tide of executive overreach.
We can protect our civil liberties, our communities, and our military by imposing these checks and balances in the Insurrection Act that I have submitted. It well serves the interests of our states, indeed our states’ rights, our military, and the traditions and ethos of our great National Guard and active-duty military, and it serves the American people in preserving rights and liberties that our founders were zealous to protect.
And so, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be discharged from further consideration of S. 2070 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, that the bill be considered and read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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