A Senator’s Oath and the Constitution

Dear Editor,

Mon. Jan 26, 2026

Dear Senator Johnson:

I have been trying for weeks now to write you a letter, but the tsunami of daily violations of our constitution have had the administration's intended paralyzing, numbing and demoralizing effects.  

You are my elected representative to the US Senate. You have three times taken an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;  . . [to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same; . . . [you stated that you took] this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that  . . . [you would] well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office. 

You have justified the lawless acts of ICE and Border Patrol agents. You have failed to act to curb the extrajudicial killings of US Citizens exercising their Constitutional rights. Your failure to support the constitutional guarantees of freedom to assemble, to bear arms and to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure, are significant lapses in "well and faithfully discharging the duties of the office." 

As a member of the US Senate, you are one of the hundred most powerful people on the planet.  Every day, I see violations of the constitution that I could never have imagined.  As my Senator, your oath obligates you to provide checks and balances against the administration's arrogant misuse of power.

It is long overdue for you to lead your Republican colleagues in the Senate to stand up to President Trump.  He demonstrates daily his instability and unfitness to lead what was historically the anchor of the free world and the established international order. It is time for you to lead your Senate colleagues to curb this administration's many departures from moral, ethical and constitutional norms. 

A first step would be to decline to give any more money to the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, and the ICE officers.  Daily masked, nameless and unaccountable federal officers indiscriminately assault, abuse, detain and arrest, not only their alleged target of violent people who are in the United States illegally, but people who are here legally on a path to seek asylum with special protected status, and even US veterans and citizens. Please support legislation to stop all of these violations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which are enabled by the excessive funding of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the Border Patrol. 

Today, the masked, nameless ICE thugs -under the cover of misinterpretations of their authority - are knocking down the doors of others without judicial warrants. It is only a matter of time before they could come to break down my door and possibly yours.

Please honor your oath, and defend the constitutional rights of all who are under the protection of that fundamental document. 

Sincerely, 

Karen D. Kendrick-Hands

Hollandale, WI