[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 27 (Wednesday, March 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1939-S1940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        EACH SENATOR IS ACCOUNTABLE ONLY TO HIS OWN CONSTITUENTS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on several occasions during the last few 
days some of the proponents of the balanced budget amendment here in 
the Senate have taken to the floor and to the airwaves, and other ways 
to criticize those Senators who have seen fit to follow the dictates of 
their own conscience and oppose the balanced budget amendment which was 
defeated in the Senate by a single vote last evening.
  In the main, these attacks seem to have been directed especially at 
those Members who may have indicated support for a balanced budget 
amendment during a campaign, but found it impossible to support the 
particular amendment which was put before the Senate for a vote.
  I should say parenthetically at this point that I voted for the 
balanced budget amendment in 1982. I had not thought much about it at 
that time. I had not studied it. But following my vote for that 
amendment on that occasion I decided to study the matter and to 
consider it seriously, and consider the impact upon the Constitution. 
And I changed my vote from 1982 to 1986. In 1986 I voted against a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget, and I have been against 
it ever since, and I always will be against it because I have given it 
thorough consideration and thought. And I have come up with a 
conclusion that I am very comfortable with.
  So there are those who may have indicated support for a balanced 
budget amendment during the campaign but found it impossible to support 
the particular amendment, as I say, which was put before the Senate for 
a vote on yesterday.
  I rise today to again congratulate those Members, who, after careful 
study of the specifics of this particular amendment, had the 
intelligence and the courage and the vision to discern the amendment's 
obvious flaws, and the courage to follow the dictates of their own 
consciences.
  More and more the trend today in political life in America is to 
blindly endorse proposals, simply because they are popular or because 
they fit neatly into a set of ideological preconditions endorsed by one 
political party, or the other. The specifics, the details, the actual 
impact of many of these political ``no-brainers,'' if you will, is 
glossed over in favor of the attraction of simplicity and ideological 
purity. Just as we have ``dumbed down'' our textbooks, the last decade 
has made a ``dumbing down'' of our politics as well. I often think that 
we insult the American people with the obvious demagoguery which spews 
forth from Washington in the form of pandering and very-very-tired, old 
cliches.
  I would like to remind my colleagues that law and legislating is 
about the examination of details. We don't legislate one-liners, or 
campaign slogans. Here, in this body and in the other body, we put the 
force of the law behind details that impact mightily upon the daily 
lives of our people. That is a solemn responsibility. And it is more 
important than political popularity, or winning the next election or 
marching lockstep to the orders of one political party, or another.
  Especially in the case of amending the Constitution, that 
responsibility weighs more heavily. For in that instance we are 
contemplating changes in our basic, fundamental organic law--changes 
that, when once implanted in that revered document, can only be removed 
at great difficulty, and which will impact, quite possibly, upon 
generations of Americans who, yet unborn, must trust us to guard their 
birthright as Americans.
  Once the Constitution is amended, it takes quite a while to repeal 
that amendment, as we saw in the case of the 18th amendment--the 
prohibition amendment--which became a part of the Constitution in 
January 1919, and it was not removed from the Constitution until 
December 1933. In other words, it was in the Constitution for 15 years 
before it could be repealed. So we have to be very, very careful when 
it comes to amending the Constitution. It is most unlike passing a law, 
or amending a law, which can be repealed within the same calendar year 
here in the Congress.
  The suggestion has been made on this floor that to change one's mind 
and to go against a statement made in a campaign is somehow a 
disservice to this country. Well, I differ, and I differ strongly. What 
I think I am hearing on the floor of this Senate is nothing more than 
an effort to use an individual Member's vote against a popular, but 
fatally flawed proposal, to cut politically against that Member, and 
further to use the Senate floor for the crass political purpose of 
meddling in the politics of several of the sovereign States.
  A campaign pledge is one thing, but may I remind all of those who 
worship at the altar of campaign pledges that there is another pledge 
that each of us makes as we stand before this body and before we assume 
the office of United States Senator. That pledge is a solemn oath taken 
with one hand on the Bible and ending in the words ``so help me God.''
  Now, that is a pledge that will trump all of the campaign pledges. 
Forget about the campaign pledges. Those who make pledges in campaigns, 
if it is their first campaign for the Senate, they have not been in the 
Senate and they have not heard the debate on a given matter. They 
haven't listened to their colleagues in the Senate. Oh, they have been 
Members of the House, as I was a Member of the House at one time. But 
once they enter this body, they are a Member of the United States 
Senate, the only forum of the States that exists in this great 
Government of ours. It is a different body. They then represent a 
different constituency--usually. And so it is quite a different thing.
  It is our oath of office that is overriding. In it we swear before 
the Creator to ``support and defend the Constitution of the United 
States against all enemies foreign and domestic.''
  A Member of this body having so sworn to uphold that sacred trust is 
then obligated to do his best to adhere to it according to his best 
intellectual efforts and the dictates of their own conscience. One does 
not surrender his or her independence upon becoming a United States 
Senator. One does not swear allegiance to a political party when he 
takes that oath of allegiance to the Constitution. That Member is then 
answerable to God and, under law, to his own constituents. They know 
about Senators' votes. We don't have to trumpet the votes for the 
benefit of the constituents of another Senator. Constituents of 
Senators know about the votes of their Senators, and a Senator is 
answerable, not to any political

[[Page S1940]]

party or person, not to any colleague, not to any organization, but 
answerable only to his own constituents, to his own conscience, and to 
his own God. He is answerable to his own constituents--the people who 
trusted his judgment enough to send him here in the first place.
  The suggestions which have been made on this floor about the dubious 
honesty of some Members are more than regrettable. They represent the 
kind of judgmental rigidity that really has no place in a body such as 
this.
  Let me also say at this point that the threats to run down that last 
remaining vote so badly desired by the proponents of this amendment by 
tinkering with language are empty fulminations because this proposal is 
fatally flawed. It is flawed in a way that cannot be mended because its 
enactment would forever shift the artful balance of powers crafted by 
the framers. That is where it is fatally flawed. No language fix can 
cure the terminal illness of the attempt to write fiscal policy and 
political ideology into a national charter intended to serve as a 
guideline for generations. This Senator, for one, will never be a party 
to grafting this pock-marked monstrosity, largely aimed at adding a 
star to the crown of one party's political agenda, to the body of our 
organic law. Now, I realize that several Democrats voted for this 
amendment. But I don't attempt to be the judge of their vote. Their 
constituents have that responsibility.
  The eagerness to tinker belies the obvious insincerity behind the 
effort, and the remarks on this floor over the past several days should 
be enough to convince us all that what is really wanted by some in this 
body is not the amendment itself, but an issue with which to whip its 
opponents. This is simple politics, my colleagues. And it is politics 
at its most unappealing and destructive level.
  It is easy to do the obvious thing. It is easy to do the popular 
thing. What it is not easy to do is to have the courage of one's 
convictions and to stand up for those convictions. So I say again, 
thank God for Members such as those who have been so roundly chastised 
in recent days. Throughout our history, men of courage have made the 
difference. Cloned sheep who cower at the suggestion of independent 
thought and action were not what the framers of the Constitution had in 
mind when they created ``the greatest deliberative body'' in the 
history of the world. They had in mind men of courage. Andrew Jackson 
said, ``One man with courage makes a majority.'' John F. Kennedy wrote 
a Pulitzer prize-winning book about those Senators who had the courage, 
on matters of principle, to follow their own convictions. If the advice 
of some of those who have taken to the floor in recent days had been 
followed, the pages of that book would be blank and this Senate and 
this country of ours would never have endured.
  Let me close, Mr. President, with the words of Senator William Pitt 
Fessenden of Maine, from a eulogy delivered upon the death of Senator 
Foot of Vermont in 1866, just 2 years before Senator Fessenden's vote 
to acquit Andrew Johnson brought about the fulfillment of Fessenden's 
own political prophecy.

       When, Mr. President, a man becomes a member of this body, 
     he cannot even dream of the ordeal to which he cannot fail to 
     be exposed;
       of how much courage he must possess to resist the 
     temptations which daily beset him;
       of that sensitive shrinking from undeserved censure which 
     he must learn to control;
       of the ever-recurring contest between a natural desire for 
     public approbation and a sense of public duty;
       of the load of injustice he must be content to bear, even 
     from those who should be his friends;
       the imputations of his motives;
       the sneers and the sarcasms of ignorance and malice;
       all the manifold injuries which partisan or private 
     malignity, disappointed of its objects, may shower upon his 
     unprotected head.
       All this, Mr. President, if he would retain his integrity, 
     he must learn to bear unmoved, and walk steadily onward in 
     the path of duty, sustained only by the reflection that time 
     may do him justice, or if not, that after all his individual 
     hopes and aspirations, and even his name among men, should be 
     of little account to him when weighed in the balance against 
     the welfare of a people of whose destiny he is a constituted 
     guardian and defender.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, am I to be recognized for 15 minutes in 
morning business under a previous order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes. Without objection, the Senator from North 
Dakota is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank you.
  I enjoyed listening to my distinguished colleague from West Virginia, 
Senator Byrd.
  Edmund Burke said something similar to the words used by Senator Byrd 
when he closed, and I do not know them exactly, but he was talking 
about what a representative in a representative government owes to his 
or her constituency. And Edmund Burke said something like: Your 
representative owes you not only his industry but also his judgment, 
and he betrays rather than serves if he always sacrifices it to your 
opinion.
  I do not know if that is an exact statement, but it is close to the 
expression of Mr. Burke and I think describes the requirement of 
someone serving in public office in this country to do what they think 
is right--not to be a weather vane to analyze what is the prevailing 
wind on Tuesday or Thursday, but to do what they think is right. That 
is especially important when we are talking about altering the 
Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  I thank him for reciting this jewel by a great Irish statesman, 
Edmund Burke, who I believe lost the next election after he had made 
that statement. He may have foreseen that, but nevertheless he made the 
statement. It still lives, and it is a very appropriate guiding 
charter, in my judgment, for those of us in this Chamber today.

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