[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 13, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1310
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE HOUSE TO DEBATE ISSUES AND EXPRESS THE VIEWS OF 
                               THE PEOPLE

  (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, constitutional scholars can view both the War 
Powers Act and article I, section 8 of the Constitution and argue the 
implications as to just what the executive branch, embodied by the 
President, can or cannot do regarding an invasion. But there is no 
equal intellectual argument to differentiate between scholars as to 
what the obligation of a Member of the House of Representatives is to 
the over half million people who call them Congressmen. That obligation 
is for the people on this floor to discuss, to debate, and to make a 
deliberative attempt to bring the issues before the public, and they be 
to express the public's views.
  Whether those views are binding on the President, whether they are 
instructive to the President, or whether in his judgment he must indeed 
differ with those views, or agree with those views, is a consequence. 
But there is no question that the day this House relinquishes the power 
to debate and discuss, it relinquishes the power of the people, by and 
for them, and for that there is never going to be a scholarly 
constitutional excuse or defense.

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