Dear Friends,
The United States is the oldest continuous constitutional democracy in the world. Its Constitution rests on the foundational principle that government power must be limited by law, a concept rooted in the Magna Carta. Though drafted centuries earlier for a narrower group of people, the Magna Carta established the revolutionary idea that no ruler stands above the law and that liberty and property cannot be taken without due process.
The American founders carried these principles forward by embedding them in a written Constitution that guarantees enforceable rights, including due process, trial by jury, limits on executive authority, and legislative control over taxation. Through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the United States expanded these early protections into a comprehensive system designed to safeguard individual liberty and prevent arbitrary government power.
This year, Pennsylvania is helping lead the nation in marking America’s 250th anniversary. I encourage you to learn more about America250PA and the events that highlight the people, places, and principles that define our commonwealth and our country.
For 250 years, Pennsylvania has been central to America’s promise. It is where the idea of self-government took form, where foundational principles were debated and written, and where liberty first found its institutional voice. From Independence Hall to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania’s history reflects moments that shaped the nation’s course. As the Keystone State, Pennsylvania has not merely occupied the center of the map; it has helped hold the country together through periods of division and transformation. Grounded in William Penn’s vision of tolerance, pluralism, and self-governance, Pennsylvania demonstrated that democracy and diversity can strengthen one another.
I believe America250PA is not simply a commemoration of the past, but a call to renew our shared commitment to constitutional democracy. While I had intended this week’s message to focus on that celebration, it is difficult to do so in the face of the erosion of fundamental rights we are witnessing across the country, particularly in Minnesota.
We are a nation founded on laws and on the principles of liberty, justice, and freedom. Historian Heather Cox Richardson argues that moments of crisis reveal who the true radicals are and who the real conservatives are, pointing to Abraham Lincoln as our clearest guide. She cites that in his 1860 Cooper Union speech, Lincoln rejected attempts to rewrite American history to justify a white nationalist oligarchy, arguing that true conservatism is fidelity to the nation’s founding ideals: human equality, the rule of law, and limits on government power rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Lincoln, she contends, recognized that those who suspend rights, discard due process, or redefine who “belongs” in America are the real revolutionaries, while those who defend civil liberties are preserving the nation itself.
From the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, the American system was designed to restrain arbitrary power, and the assaults on the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments we are currently witnessing are not law-and-order measures but the antithesis of who we are as a nation. Protecting Constitutional rights is not rebellion but is rather the deepest form of American conservatism.
The First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments form part of the backbone of American constitutional liberty, each born from hard lessons about the dangers of unchecked power. The First Amendment arose from colonial experience with censorship and repression, protecting free speech, protecting freedom of religion, a free press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition so that political dissent could never be criminalized by those in power.
The Fourth Amendment grew out of outrage over British agents’ warrantless searches, establishing the right of people to be secure in their homes and requiring judicial warrants based on probable cause to prevent government intimidation and arbitrary intrusion.
After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment extended these protections by guaranteeing due process and equal protection to all persons, ensuring that governments could not deny rights by redefining who belongs.
Together, these amendments were designed to prevent the very tactics authoritarian systems rely on: punishing dissent, bypassing courts, and creating classes of people outside the law. These freedoms are threatened when protest is met with force, political speech is treated as subversion, homes are entered without warrants, and individuals are deprived of liberty without due process.
Recent federal enforcement actions are raising serious constitutional concerns. Under the First Amendment, peaceful protesters and bystanders have faced force and intimidation during demonstrations against ICE and CBP operations, suggesting retaliation against protected speech, assembly, and press activity. Under the Fourth Amendment, federal raids and enforcement actions, sometimes conducted without clear warrants or judicial oversight, including a recently released memo giving guidance to ICE officials to enter homes without a warrant, have created the appearance of unreasonable searches and seizures. And under the Fourteenth Amendment, these actions have at times deprived individuals of liberty without due process and disproportionately affected immigrant and Black communities, raising questions about equal protection.
With the execution-style killing of a VA ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, who was attempting to aid a protester, the First and Second Amendments are now squarely in question. Pretti, a legally licensed concealed-carry holder, never reached for his weapon. He was disarmed, restrained by multiple individuals, and then shot repeatedly.
In the aftermath, FBI Director Kash Patel stated, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.” A federal prosecutor remarked, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem alleged, “I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.”
These statements mark a striking departure from an administration that previously celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse after he traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin to attend a counter-protest and killed two people, injuring a third, with an AR-15-style rifle.
Moreover, the U.S. Constitution, including the Second and Fourth Amendments, does not permit law enforcement to use lethal force merely because a citizen is armed. Deadly force is justified only in response to an imminent threat, and the facts of this case strongly suggest that the constitutional standard was violated. The Constitution does not ask us to choose to use only one of our constitutional rights at a time. You can exercise your First and Second Amendment rights simultaneously.
While I want to celebrate America250PA without reservation, it would be a disservice to ignore the challenges currently facing our country and the health of our democracy. Much of what is happening falls under federal purview and is beyond the reach of my office, but there is one meaningful step YOU can take to demand greater accountability: please consider contacting your U.S. Senators and urging them not to approve increased funding for ICE without substantive reforms to how the agency operates. In next week’s email, I will outline a package of bills currently before the Pennsylvania House that address ICE operations in our commonwealth and focus on protecting Pennsylvanians from threats to their constitutional rights.