Illinois’ senior senator made an appeal across the aisle Monday as President Donald Trump moved to deploy out-of-state National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said in a floor speech and in comments to reporters that his Republican colleagues needed to speak up against what he said is a grave constitutional crisis.
“He is deploying troops into an American state and city without the permission of the governor,” he told reporters. “If you’re a student of American history, you realize what the significance of this move is. This is a president trying to assert his authority and power over a sovereign state and people who live in it. It could happen to your state next.”
Durbin also said he expects the matter to come up in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi.
So far, the GOP response to the troop deployments in Illinois and in Oregon, which has so far been blocked by a federal judge, has been muted.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that deploying federalized National Guard troops “to protect [federal] law enforcement personnel and federal buildings … is a justifiable use of executive branch authority.”
“Like any any executive branch of the government, they always — I’ve been through lot of them — extend and try and expand as much as possible the use of executive power and authority,” he added. “There’s always a tension, a back-and-forth — stress, if you will, between the branches of the government and, in many cases, the courts have to decide it.”
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