[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H4172-H4173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SUPPORT H.R. 2270

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address an issue of what 
I believe is of grave concern for this Nation, and that is an issue 
dealing with the fundamental law of the land.
  I hold here the Constitution of the United States, and all of us as 
individuals learned about this document and studied it in grade school 
and high school civics. Some of us might have even gone back since then 
and read a provision or two. I want to focus on the importance of this 
document and on the importance of an issue that I think has become 
abused.
  Mr. Speaker, this document sets forth the vision of our Founding 
Fathers for a powerful central Government, but with limited and 
specifically enumerated powers. Now, why did they spell out that? Why 
did they say that it should have certain powers and that they should be 
significant powers, but that they should be limited and specifically 
enumerated?
  Well, if you reflect on your history, you will realize that the 
Founding Fathers of this Nation had themselves recently escaped an 
oppressive central Government, a central Government which took the form 
of a king, a king who could at will order whatever he wanted and 
command or demand what he chose. The Founding Fathers, fearing that we 
might return to that system, felt we should spell out in a single 
document which would bind the Nation forever those powers granted to 
the Federal Government and that they should be adequate and complete 
for that Government to do its jobs.
  But they recognized that there were many States which would make up 
this Union and that those States would play a fundamental role, and 
they addressed and they considered the division of power between the 
Federal Government on the one hand and the States on the other, and to 
address that concern they spelled out in an amendment, which I want to 
call to the attention of my colleagues here in the House, the 10th 
amendment, which reads, and I think it is important for us to 
understand what it reads and to think through its meaning, the 10th 
amendment to the U.S. Constitution addresses this issue of what level 
of Government should exercise which powers. And it says specifically:
  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively or to the people.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, many of those in my freshmen class were elected on 
a platform that has to do with that, the 10th amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution. We have watched through our lifetimes, and I have watched 
through my lifetime, as the Federal Government located here in 
Washington, DC, thousands and thousands of miles from my constituents 
at home in Arizona, has sought to bring to itself more and more and 
more and more power, and in doing that what it has done at the same 
time is to reduce by ever-growing amounts the power and the authority 
of all the good men and women who serve in State legislatures around 
this Nation, all the good men and women who serve on county boards of 
supervisors or city councils. Indeed as the Congress has arrogated unto 
itself all this power, it has left less and less power for individual 
citizens of this country.
  Now, why should that be of concern? It really is kind of simple, and 
that is what this boils down to: The truth is my constituents back in 
Phoenix, AZ,

[[Page H4173]]

have a better chance of affecting a decision if they can go down to 
their city council or down to the board of supervisors or even down to 
the legislature and raise an issue, than if in order to affect that 
issue they have to come all the way here to Washington, DC, thousands 
of miles from my home.
  I believe it is critical for this Congress to recognize that in 
ignoring the 10th amendment over the past several decades and in 
arrogating more and more power to ourselves in Congress, quite frankly 
so that politicians here can buy themselves back into office, what we 
have done is we have taken power away from the citizens. It is time to 
end that.
  Now, how do we end that? I want to talk to my colleagues tonight 
about one simple idea, and that is the notion as set forth in a bill 
which I have introduced to this Congress, which would, I believe, 
restore meaning to the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I hold 
a copy of it here. It is H.R. 2270. It is for Federal legislation quite 
unique in that it is less than 3 pages long. It is a simple bill which 
simply says that before any one of our colleagues, before any one of us 
here on the floor, could introduce a new bill calling for the Federal 
Government to take on some new project or some new legislation, you 
would have to spell out the powers granted to it to do that under the 
U.S. Constitution. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this 
and to set the terms so that we could not debate on this floor 
legislation in areas that the Constitution did not grant us the 
authority.
  It is a simple idea; it is H.R. 2270. It says, out of respect for the 
10th amendment, before we introduce a bill, we must spell out the 
constitutional authority that gives us, the Congress, the power to 
legislate in that area. It is a critical first step.

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