Earlier this month, mass protests broke out in California and the greater Los Angeles area in response to the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive efforts to detain migrants through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Despite evidence that the vast majority of protestors in LA used their First Amendment rights peacefully and that law enforcement, not protestors, were the ones instigating violence during the demonstrations, many Republican leaders have since characterized the protests as violent “riots.” That very characterization was used by President Trump to justify the deployment of Marines and members of the National Guard to California in response to the protests — an action which California claims was illegal in a lawsuit the state subsequently filed against the administration.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, has been among the most aggressive critics of the protests, with the senator referring to demonstrators as “domestic terrorists” and even calling for the arrest of California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Now, Tuberville is joining U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis, R-NC, Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, Ted Budd, R-NC, and Bill Cassidy, R-LA, in reintroducing legislation which would openly criminalize protestors for blocking public roads.
The “Safe and Open Streets Act” — which Tillis originally introduced last year — would make it illegal for protestors to “in any way or degree, purposely obstruct, delay, or affect commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce by blocking a public road or highway, or to attempt or conspire so to do.” Under the bill, anyone arrested for such an act would be charged with a federal crime punishable by up to 5 years in prison and any associated fines.
“For nearly a week, we watched as domestic terrorists assaulted ICE and law enforcement officers, set fire to cop cars, and blocked streets in Los Angeles and in other blue cities across the country—all while Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass sat on their tails and did nothing,” Tuberville said in an official statement. “The First Amendment gives us the right to freedom of assembly, but it doesn’t give the right to block our streets and put American lives at risk. I’m proud to join the Safe and Open Streets Act that restores law and order by holding radical protestors accountable.”
While Tuberville appears intent on villifying anti-ICE protestors as “domestic terrorists,” he has never used such strong language when referring to the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In fact, Tuberville has gone on the record saying that he “didn’t believe” Jan. 6 protesters attacked police because he “didn’t see it” despite widely-accessible video footage of police being assaulted and the fact that the senator was in the building while it happened. One of the officers attacked at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Brian Sicknick, even died after suffering two strokes in the aftermath of the insurrection, and yet Tuberville has never called the rioters who overran the Capitol “domestic terrorists.”
The closest the senator has ever come to denouncing the Jan. 6 protestors came when he condemned the “extremists” who physically entered the Capitol before defending those who did not enter the building itself as “true Americans that believe in this country.”
Even so, Tuberville fully supported President Trump’s decision to pardon more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 riots — including many who entered the building and assaulted law enforcement. Now, the same senator hopes to charge any protestor who blocks a road or “obstructs commerce” in any way with a federal crime.
LaShawn Warren, Chief Policy Officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center & SPLC Action Fund, criticized Tuberville’s comments and the provisions of the Safe and Open Streets Act in a written statement to APR on Thursday.
“At this critical time in our nation’s history, it is imperative that we advance policies that protect the civil rights and liberties the most marginalized amongst us, including addressing the continued radicalization of Americans towards hate and extremist view’s,” Warren stated.
“Rather than addressing the real threat to public safety—rising hate and dangerous rhetoric targeting public servants—this bill seeks to silence dissent. Branding all critics as ‘domestic terrorists’ and criminalizing legitimate protest sets a dangerous precedent. It moves us further from this nation’s core democratic values and closer to totalitarianism,” Warren continued. “The Safe and Open Streets Act isn’t about law and order—it’s about dismantling the fundamental right to freedom of speech and protest.”
