Senatorial Daydreams

February 24, 2025

Sen. John Cornyn

517 Hart Senate Office

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Sen. Cornyn:

This may sound a little creepy, but I’ve been (day)dreaming about you these past few weeks. So, I’m writing this letter to share some of those dreams with you; hoping they will inspire you to come out of hiding and stand up for the rule of law and the dignity of the United States Senate, the institution you have dedicated more than two decades of your life to serving.

But first I need to do something that, if I were a better constituent, I would have done a long time ago. And that is to thank you for your leadership and political courage in shepherding the bipartisan Safer Communities Act through the Senate. I also want to thank you for the critical (and also bipartisan) role that you played in getting the funds appropriated for the beautiful, functional, secure federal courthouse that now sits on the banks of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park in downtown San Antonio (the park being yet another project made possible, in part, by federal funds that you helped appropriate). This long-sought and much-needed new courthouse facilitated a chain reaction of positive changes in the downtown area that will positively impact San Antonio for decades to come. Thank you for helping to make it all possible.

Turning now to those daydreams I’ve been having. They started when I noticed Senate Republicans sitting meekly on the sidelines in quiet acquiescence as the Trump administration began running roughshod over the Constitution, making a mockery of the separation of powers doctrine.

In my dreams you are deeply concerned and mightily distressed about President Trump’s overreach, and you have a palpable fear that this might be, in fact very well could be, the beginning of the end of American democracy as we have come to know and understand it.

In my dreams your acquiescence is strategic. Like all Republican senators and most Republican House members that contemplate standing up to Trump, I realize that you face the existential political threat of Trump anointing, and Elon Musk funding, an acolyte and sycophant (like, for example and God forbid, Ken Paxton) to challenge you, very possibly successfully, in the 2026 Republican primary.

If in fact this is a worrisome threat that you perceive, please know that you are not alone. I’m worried about that very same thing, because I feel pretty sure that I will be a lot more comfortable having you representing me in the United States Senate than anyone that has a plausible chance of gaining Trump’s endorsement and winning an election to replace you.

But I also wonder how you, having served for so long as a powerful member of a co-equal branch of government, can stomach the diminution of your role as a legislator that has occurred over the last few weeks.

In fact, I wonder why you would even want to remain in Congress to serve as, essentially, a toady for an imperial president hellbent on destroying the government that you have invested more than two decades of your life building and sustaining?

What value is there, I wonder to myself, in being a lawmaker if the laws that you make don’t matter to the person that is charged with administering them, and you are unwilling to even try to hold that person to account for his malfeasance?

But, in my dreams, that’s not the entire story. In my dreams you are sharing your concerns about Trump with trusted colleagues and advisors, as you contemplate and strategize with them about what y’all can and should do to stop him from destroying our republic. In other words, you and some like-minded colleagues have a plan and/or you are in the process of developing a plan, to push back against Trump’s executive overreach and to re-establish the balance of power contemplated by the founders.

In my dreams you are deeply distressed and embarrassed about voting to confirm crackpots like Bobby Kennedy to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.

In my dreams there is some plausible reason that has escaped my attention why you, or any senator, would vote to confirm as director of the Office of Management and Budget a person that flatly stated, under oath, that he believes the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is unconstitutional and that he intended to act (and, in fact, has acted) accordingly.

In my dreams you had to rush to the nearest commode to vomit after hearing Trump’s comments suggesting that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war with Russia; and had to stay planted there, upchucking throughout the night, as you contemplated the irreparable harm that will result from America’s ignominious and profoundly stupid retreat from the world stage and the many alliances that have made us wealthier, stronger and safer.

In my dreams you, as an attorney, a former state district judge, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, a former Texas attorney general and a long-time member of the Senate Judiciary Committee are sickened and nauseated by what is happening in the Department of Justice and the FBI, most especially the sordid shenanigans in the case involving New York Mayor Eric Adams.

In my dreams you read the resignation letters of U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten and were inspired by them, secretly wishing that you had half the courage and integrity of these two young lawyers; even, perhaps, recalling a day long ago when you may have.

Unfortunately, the underlying premise of my dream was shaken a few days ago when I received an email from you stating that: “Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are the perfect choice to reverse the Biden Department of Justice’s failures and stop the partisan hackery that plagued the previous administration.”

Kash Patel is the “perfect choice” to be FBI Director? Good grief senator, have you no shame, no sense of dignity, no tether to reality?

In my dreams (farfetched as they increasingly seem to be) this knee-jerk sycophancy to King Trump is just a time-buying ruse. In my dreams you have a grand plan to reinfuse a spine into the gelatinous puddles that you and your Republican colleagues in the senate have melted into, transforming those quivering blobs into something resembling the United States Senators they used to be.

Several days ago, in response to a question about the concerns that many have about Musk’s dismantling of USAID, an agency established and funded by Congress, your colleague, Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana, said this; “To my friends who are upset, I would say with respect, you know, call somebody who cares. They better get used to this. It’s USAID today. It’s going to be Department of Education tomorrow.”

In my dreams maybe you are somebody who cares? Somebody who cares that it is Congress, not the Executive, that is empowered to decide the fate of USAID and DoE?

In my dreams I imagine that you, as a 1L in your constitutional law class at St. Mary’s University in the mid-1970s, were assigned to read the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Youngstown Sheet & Tube v Sawyer, concerning President Truman’s executive order seizing control of steel mills during the Korean War.

In my dreams I imagine that, perhaps, you lingered over the concurring opinion of Justice Robert Jackson and took careful note of the framework that he outlined for analyzing separation of powers conflicts between the President and Congress.

In my dreams I imagine that you will revisit Youngstown Sheet & Tube and perhaps gain some inspiration and guidance for the situation that we find ourselves in today. With that in mind, I’ll close with these words from Justice Jackson’s concurrence:

“…as we approach the question of presidential power, we half overcome mental hazards by recognizing them. The opinions of judges, no less than executives and publicists, often suffer the infirmity of confusing the issue of a power's validity with the cause it is invoked to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary occupant. The tendency is strong to emphasize transient results upon policies - such as wages or stabilization - and lose sight of enduring consequences upon the balanced power structure of our Republic.”

 

Dave Pasley

San Antonio, Texas