Ranking Member Raskin’s Opening Statement at Bicameral Spotlight Forum with State Attorneys General on Democrats’ Fight Against Trump’s Lawlessness
Washington, D.C. (June 23, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, delivered opening remarks at the Bicameral Spotlight Forum entitled “Defending the Rights of the People: States and Congressional Allies Fight Back Against Trump’s Constitutional Abuses,” featuring a panel of Democratic state Attorneys General combatting the Trump Administration’s lawlessness through litigation.
Below are Ranking Member Raskin’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s spotlight forum.
WATCH Ranking Member Raskin’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin
House Judiciary Committee
Bicameral Spotlight Forum: “Defending the Rights of the People: States and Congressional Allies Fight Back Against Trump’s Constitutional Abuses”
June 23, 2025
Almost 250 years ago, America declared its independence from the “absolute despotism” of King George and the British Empire. In the monarchical societies, Thomas Paine said, the King is the Law, but in the free societies, the Law will be King.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson stated that our social contract would rest on the equality of all and the “consent of the governed,” and it would serve the “unalienable rights” of the people.
A decade later, the Constitution set forth a clear mission statement in the Preamble, defining the purposes of government not around the whims of one man but the collective purposes of the whole emergent nation: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution of these United States of America.”
The very next sentence opened Article I by vesting all legislative power in the Congress of the United States. The first Article gives Congress the power to pass budgets and taxes, to govern commerce among the states and with foreign nations, to declare war, to regulate naturalization and immigration, to promote the progress of science, and many other purposes, and then in Article I, Section 8, clause 18, all other powers “necessary and proper for carrying into the execution of the foregoing powers.”
Article II on the executive power is small by contrast, and the most striking part is Section 4, which states that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Section 2 names the president “Commander in Chief,” not of the nation or the government but of “the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States.” So what is the core job of the president? Simple: “he shall take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That’s it—not thwarted or distorted, not inverted or diverted, just executed in accordance with Congressional purpose. The Framers, who had just overthrown a King drunk on power and mad for increasing his fortune and empire, feared monarchical pretensions and wrote a Constitution to keep the president in his proper place.
Article 3 vests all judicial power in the Supreme Court and inferior courts to clarify legal rights and responsibilities in “actual cases or controversies.” As the Court put it in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison, “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” And Article VI of the Constitution makes clear that the Constitution and federal laws are the supreme law of the land, establishing that we have a supreme Constitution here, not a supreme leader.
The Bill of Rights was added to protect the essential rights and freedoms of the people against abuse by the government, whether a Congress passing laws that infringe on constitutional liberty or a president making up laws, usurping Congressional powers or violating constitutional rights or states trespassing constitutional freedom.
Now, here’s the amazing thing. The Framers understood, like Lord Acton, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Madison said that tyranny was the collapse of all powers—legislative, executive and judicial—into one conglomerate ruling entity, which is a fine definition of the power of a King. So they arranged a constitutional system where power would be vertically divided, shared and distributed between the federal government and the states and their localities, as well as horizontally distributed among the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the national government. The branches would check one another’s abusive ambitions, and the people would exercise their freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition for redress to counterbalance the tyrannical propensities of government generally.
We are in a dramatic constitutional confrontation today where every facet of the Framers’ design has been activated to save constitutional democracy and freedom. From the day he took office, Trump has tried to exercise the powers of a King, trampling the basic rights and freedoms of the people, usurping the lawmaking powers of Congress, denouncing judges and threatening to defy the rulings of courts, and violating the legitimate authority of state governors and legislatures.
Last Saturday, June 14, which was Flag Day and the president’s birthday, he chose to stage a $45 million military parade in the streets of Washington. In response, at least seven million antimonarchical Americans assembled in over 2,000 protests in cities and towns across America for the unveiling of “No Kings Day,” a magnificent demonstration of the inextinguishable resiliency of popular constitutional democracy in the face of dictatorial political designs against the people.
But the people marching in the streets, from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, from the Boundary Waters of Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana, are not alone in this process. They reflect a powerful constitutional opposition in motion.
Political leaders at the state level are fighting back in court, along with their Democratic allies in Congress, and we are winning this fight every day in courtrooms across America.
More than 328 lawsuits have been filed since Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and Elon Musk took office, and federal courts across the land have remarkably issued 197 preliminary injunctions and Temporary Restraining Orders against their reign of lawlessness.
The witnesses before us today—the Attorneys General for the people of Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Illinois—are leaders in the fight for the Constitutional principles and federal laws that have been abandoned by the president and his team. And these chief state lawyers are winning significant battles in front of judges appointed by both Republican presidents and Democratic presidents; they are even winning in front of judges appointed by President Trump himself.
State Attorneys General have brought at least 30 lawsuits against the new administration, successfully blocking many of the Administration’s most reckless and lawless actions.
They challenged Trump’s efforts to nullify constitutional birthright citizenship in America and won injunctions to stop the order from going into effect.
They challenged Trump’s funding freeze and won a court order forcing Trump to lift the freeze and deliver the funds that state and local programs were entitled to. When Trump didn’t pay up, states went back to court to make him comply.
They challenged DOGE’s unconstitutional gathering of private data on millions of Americans, and just a few weeks ago won a ruling that will allow the suit to move forward.
They sued when the Administration tried to claw back billions of dollars in public health grants, and won an injunction against the rescission so that these funds will be delivered to states and localities.
They sued to stop Trump’s policies to dismantle voting rights, and won a temporary injunction against major portions of his order requiring every citizen in America to prove their citizenship every time we vote.
Trump’s push against the rights of the people is losing in court, with judges striking down unconstitutional orders and issuing scathing rebukes of his lawlessness.
Judge John Coughenour said of Trump’s birthright citizenship order: “I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear.” He went on to ask “Where were the lawyers” when the decision to sign the executive order was made, and said that it “boggled” his mind that any member of the bar would contend the order was constitutional.
Congressional Democrats have joined the state Attorneys General in the fight. Although we are limited in what cases we can bring ourselves by virtue of very restrictive legal standing doctrines against Members of Congress suing the president, we have filed detailed Amicus briefs in support of the state Attorneys General suits, identifying our unique interests and unyielding determination to defend federal laws we have passed against Executive usurpation.
Of course, judges have sometimes ruled against the Attorneys General too. We would expect nothing less in an adversarial system under the rule of law. But you know what we won’t do? We won’t denounce the district judges and call for their impeachment or put up “Wanted” signs outside our offices.
We will defend the rule of law and we won’t be intimidated by Trump’s threats and authoritarian tactics. Those of us who aspire to and attain public office, no matter where it is, are nothing but the servants of the people, and the people are sovereign.
To every state Attorney General who is here today, and to those who are not here but are in this battle for the rule of law, I say on behalf of our Colleagues that it’s an honor to be in this fight with you. Congressional Democrats are proud to stand with you in this fight to protect our Constitution, its values and the rights of all our people.