[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 43 (Monday, April 14, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1449-H1452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THOSE WHO WOULD AMEND THE CONSTITUTION ARE REVOLUTIONARIES, NOT
CONSERVATIVES
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt]
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I do not think my colleague,
the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher], could have set the
table any better for my comments, because I, too, am here today to
speak on behalf of the American people, and some of the principles for
which the American people fought many years ago in the establishment of
this country.
This is a first for me. This is my third term in Congress. I am in my
5th
[[Page H1450]]
year. I have never, ever requested an hour to address my colleagues or
anyone in a special order. But I come today with such a firm belief
that what we are about to do in this House on tomorrow, the issue that
we are about to consider, which would require a two-thirds vote in this
House for the passage of a bill which had the effect of increasing
taxes, is so inconsistent with every single principle that is near and
dear to me, and should be near and dear to the American people, that I
asked for this time today.
The American people will probably remember this debate from a year
ago. On April 15, 1996, the Republican leadership brought a bill to
this body that was essentially identical to this bill. It would have
required a two-thirds majority to increase taxes. That bill was
resoundingly defeated, bipartisanly defeated, and so one wonders
initially, why would the bill be back again tomorrow, on April 15,
1997, a bill that lost 243 to 177 last time? Why would it be back
again?
Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues I believe are trying to
convince the public that they are doing something that is in their
interest, and on tax day they are trying to fan some flames and get
some political benefits. But the American people should not be fooled
by this.
Mr. Speaker, my colleagues tomorrow who bring this bill will say, we
bring it to do a favor for the American people. We bring it as a
conservative initiative to counteract those liberals who would raise
taxes on the American people.
I want to reflect back, at the outset of my comments, to comments
made by President Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860. This is what he
said. I am quoting him directly:
But you say you are conservative, imminently conservative,
while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the
sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old
and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend
for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy
which was adopted by our fathers who framed the government
under which we live, while you, with one accord, reject and
scalp and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon
substituting something new.
True, you disagree among yourselves as to what the
substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and renouncing the
old policy of the fathers of our country.
Amending the Constitution of the United States, Mr. Speaker, is not a
conservative notion. It is a revolutionary, a radical notion, and I
keep wondering why it is under those circumstances that over and over
and over again this new majority, which calls itself a majority of
conservatives, brings time after time after time again proposed
amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America, in
unprecedented numbers.
During the last term of Congress there were 118 constitutional
amendments proposed; various permutations, combinations, proposed to
this body by this new conservative majority, calling themselves
conservatives, attacking the very document which is the basis on which
we operate our Government.
In the last Congress we voted on four amendments to the Constitution,
the balanced budget amendment, the term limits amendment, the flag
desecration amendment, the supermajority for tax increases amendment,
the same proposal that will be before the House again tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker, four proposed amendments to the Constitution may not
sound like a dramatic number, but 118 proposed amendments were
introduced in this body, the great, great, great, great majority of
them by my colleagues calling themselves the new conservative majority;
in the 104th Congress, the last Congress, proposed amendments 10 times
more than any of the prior 10 Congresses, this conservative new
majority.
Over the last 10 years, the average number of constitutional
amendments introduced and voted on in the House was 1. Look back
through our whole history in this country and look at the number of
times our basic framework of our democracy has been amended, and here
we are again tomorrow with a new constitutional amendment attacking the
framework under which our Government and our country operates.
Mr. Speaker, I come with a passion about this issue. I have told my
colleagues in this body many times that I believe on constitutional
issues I may be the most conservative, maybe the only conservative in
this body. I think it is revolutionary to propose a constitutional
amendment. It is not conservative.
My colleagues can tell me over and over and over again how
conservative they are, but it is not a conservative notion to amend the
Constitution of the United States. Yet, over and over again during the
last Congress and in this Congress, starting anew, there are a bunch of
cavalier Members who believe that they have a better idea about how our
country ought to operate than the Founding Fathers of our Nation, whose
ideas have stood the test of time; a bunch of radicals calling
themselves conservatives, and saying, we have a better idea about how
to run this country.
Those are the kinds of people that my colleague, the gentleman from
California, was talking about, who are supporting not ordinary citizens
who believe in the Constitution under which we operate, but they are
supporting a different notion.
Why do I choose this proposed constitutional amendment to come and
address? Mr. Speaker, I believe this is the most basic attack on our
Constitution of any that were proposed during the last Congress, and
any that will be proposed during this Congress.
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It goes at the very heart of our democracy. Our democracy is based on
majority rule, one person, one vote; every single individual in this
country is equally weighted. And to come with a constitutional
amendment which says require a two-thirds majority diminishes the value
of somebody's vote and enhances the value of somebody else's vote. It
is counterdemocratic.
Mr. Speaker, the essence of democracy is majority rule. Lord knows, I
have been in a minority my entire life. I have no objection to being in
a minority. What I have objection to is some supermajority requirement,
because I understand that our democracy is based on majority rule.
Why is majority rule so basic? Go back to our Founding Fathers,
Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers, here is what he said:
``The fundamental maxim of republican government requires that the
sense of the majority should prevail.''
That is Alexander Hamilton, majority rule is the basis of our
democracy. We litigated for years and years to establish the
requirement that each person's vote out in the populace should be
equally weighted in the selection of Members of the U.S. House of
Representatives. In the cases of Gray versus Sanders and Wesberry
versus Sanders, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically articulated that
every single individual has an equivalent right to select the Members
of this body.
Here is what the court said in Westbury versus Sanders:
We hold that, construed in its historical context, the
command of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution that
representatives be chosen by the people of the several States
means that, as nearly as practicable, one man's vote in a
congressional election is to be worth as much as another's.
To say that a vote is worth more in one district than in
another district would not only run counter to our
fundamental ideas of democratic government, it would cast
aside the principle of a House of Representatives elected by
the people, a principle tenaciously fought for and
established at the Constitutional Convention.
We spent in 1990 almost $3 billion, and in the year 2000 we will
spend another $4 to $5 billion to count every citizen in the United
States and reapportion our Government, because we believe in the
principle of one person, one vote. We do not count and do a census just
for the heck of it. It is the basis of our democracy. It is the basis
on which the membership of this House of Representatives is
constituted.
We will spend $4 billion in support of that proposition in the year
2000. And guess what? After that census is taken, in order to ensure
that one person one vote is appropriately applied, the whole system of
districts, congressional districts throughout the country will be
reordered. Some States will lose representatives because they have lost
population in proportion to other States. Some States will gain
population. There will have to be a redrawing of congressional lines
all across this country, because we believe in the principle of one
person one vote. It is
[[Page H1451]]
the basis of majority rule. It is the basis of a democracy.
Now, what happens then when a constitutional amendment is offered
that requires a two-thirds vote? What you have said to the American
people is, oh, no, we understand that you have the right to be equally
represented in the selection of your Representatives, but your
Representatives do not have the right to be equally represented in
their voting on this issue. That, my friends, is the reason that the
number of places in the U.S. Constitution requiring anything other than
a majority vote is severely limited, limited to only four instances,
four instances: Ratification or consent to a treaty, that is our
relationship with an external entity, somebody external to our country
so we require a higher level of support for that kind of endeavor;
conviction in impeachment trials or expulsion of Members, our
relationships internally in this body, we require a higher
constitutional requirement; to override a Presidential veto, we require
a higher than majority vote because that has to do with the balance of
power between the various branches of the Government, and that is the
way our Founding Fathers set it up; or passing a constitutional
amendment.
That ought to tell us something about what our Founding Fathers
thought about willy-nilly, based-on-popularity polls, based on the
issue of the day or the thought-of-the-moment thought about amending
the Constitution. That ought to tell us something about how serious
they were about it. Yet this new conservative majority would have us
believe that they are somehow being conservative, attacking the very
document that is the basis of our democratic society.
We do not even require a supermajority, anything other than a
majority in this House to declare war. Would anybody submit to me that
a declaration of war is less important than raising somebody's taxes?
Mr. Speaker, this is a counterdemocratic movement that is being
proposed, and it is being brought out here tomorrow onto this floor on
April 15, just like it was on April 15 a year ago, not for any
substantive purposes but for political purposes.
Well, what do some of our Founding Fathers have to say about this
majority rule or supermajority requirement? Listen, if you would, to
Alexander Hamilton again, when he debated at the convention this whole
notion that there ought to be something other than a majority vote to
decide issues. Here is what he said:
What at first sight may seem a remedy is in reality a
poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority,
which is always the case where more than a majority is
requisite to a decision, is in its tendency to subject the
sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Its real
operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the
energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure and
caprice of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junta.
He called them a junta. Hey, that is a revolutionary term. It is a
revolutionary term.
He went on to say,
This interruption of regular deliberations in decisions of
a respectable majority would lead to tedious delays,
continual negotiation and intrigue, contemptible compromises
of the public good.
Mr. Speaker, those are not my words. Those are Alexander Hamilton's
words on the founding of this country about this same kind of notion
that is coming to the floor of the House of Representatives tomorrow.
Well, was Alexander Hamilton alone in his contempt for this
requirement of something other than majority rule? No, he was not. What
about James Madison in The Federalist Papers? It has been said, and I
am quoting,
It has been said that more than a majority ought to have
been required for a quorum and in particular cases, if not in
all, more than a majority of a quorum for a decision. In all
cases where justice or the general good might require new
laws to be passed or active measures to be pursued, the
fundamental principle of free government would be reversed.
It would be no longer the majority that would rule, the power
would be transferred to the minority. Were the defense
privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority
might take advantage of it to screen themselves from
equitable sacrifices to the general will or in particular
emergencies to extort unreasonable indulgences.
Those are the words of James Madison on the founding of our country.
They are not my words. And yet my colleagues would have us believe that
this two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes is just, we are protecting
the people of the United States. Well, which people of the United
States are they protecting?
{time} 1530
Which people are they protecting? I submit that they are not
protecting any of us. Because if we truly believe in democracy, then we
truly believe in the rule of the majority. And if we need to raise
taxes or lower taxes or declare war or take any action that is not
already specified in the Constitution as requiring a higher than a
majority vote, then we ought be able to do it based on majority rule.
I did not come here to talk about raising taxes or lowering taxes.
This is not about the issue that underlies this. This is about the
document that is the fabric and basis of our democracy. It is about
majority rule. It is about standing up for every single person to have
the same right that every other person in this country enjoys. It is
about every single representative, each one of us, representing an
equivalent number of people in the scheme of our Government, not having
his or her vote in this House of Representatives diminished in any
measure.
So it is not about taxes. That is not the issue at all. It is about
the Constitution of the United States of America. It is about the
principles that underlie majority rule and democracy in our country.
Mr. Speaker, this proposal that will come to us tomorrow is not even
well drafted. I could not believe that I could pick up a document that
proposes to amend the Constitution of the United States and find some
of the language that I found in this bill. It says, ``In order to pass
a tax increase, you got to have a two-thirds vote if the tax increase
is something more than `de minimis'.''
Who knows what de minimis means? There is not a person in this body
who knows what de minimis is. There is no such word in the Constitution
of the United States as we speak today. There has never been any
definition of what that means.
So this constitutional amendment, this proposed constitutional
amendment, were it to pass, would pass that authority to decide what
the word ``de minimis'' means to the judicial branch of our government,
interrupting, unbalancing the balance of power that has been
established between the legislative body and the judicial branch of the
Government.
The wording somehow was pulled out of the air for the purposes of
this moment so that we could get it to the floor of the House of
Representatives on April 15 because everybody is going to be worried
about paying their taxes tomorrow.
That is the only reason this bill is coming to the floor tomorrow
because my colleagues want the American people to think about this in
an emotional fashion. They do not care about the merits of the bill.
They do not care that 200 years from now they will have interrupted the
most cherished notion of majority rule that our country is based on.
They just want to make some political points on April 15, and they
think that is the day to make them because people will be incensed
about having to pay taxes. And they are going to come here tomorrow and
tell the American people that they are trying to do a favor for the
American people.
I want to spend just a minute or two, I am not going to take the
entire time I have, but I do want to take a few more minutes just to
alert my colleagues that this is not about protecting the American
people.
Understand that in 1952, corporate income taxes constituted 32
percent of all Federal revenue. By 1992, corporate taxes represented 9
percent of Federal revenue.
Let me repeat that. In 1952, corporate taxes constituted 32 percent
of the Federal revenue. By 1992, corporate taxes constituted only 9
percent of Federal revenue.
During that time, we gave major tax breaks to trans, multinational
corporations. They can set prices on an intercompany basis, sales and
elect whatever country they wanted to pay taxes in. And nobody ever
collects any taxes in the United States, so we built in an incentive
for them to take our jobs abroad to other places. Represents $12
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billion in tax subsidies a year. Pass this constitutional amendment in
order to undue that corporate tax welfare; it would take a two-thirds
vote.
Do my colleagues really think this is about protecting the American
people? This is about imposing more of the burden on the American
people.
I am not going to go through all the corporate loopholes and
subsidies that we provide to corporations, but it should tell us
something, that if over a 40-year period the percentage of income that
the Federal Government gets from corporations went down from 32 percent
of income to 9 percent of the income, that somebody had to pick up that
difference.
Now we are here, my colleagues, telling us that they are
conservatives in this body, willing to undermine the basic principle
that individual citizens and rights that individual citizens have in
this country to have their vote equally counted and equally
represented, with a piece of legislation that would require a two-
thirds vote now to get rid of any of those corporate tax subsidies. We
could not even go after them. Could not do it.
So tell me, my colleagues, whether this is about protecting the
individual. Is this about protecting individual citizens of this
country? My friends, it is not. What protects individual citizens of
this country is being equally valued, being able to cast a vote and
know that my vote counts as much as my colleague's vote and my
colleague's vote counts as much as the next person's vote.
We go to great pains every 10 years to do a census because we value
that notion. We value majority rule. We value one person, one vote, and
we should resist as a people any attempt to undermine the value that we
place on that notion of majority rule. That is the essence of our
democracy.
Mr. Speaker, you may have gathered by now that I feel strongly about
this piece of legislation. Not because it has anything to do with
taxes. I have been on this floor many times since I have been in this
body speaking against proposed amendments to the Constitution of the
United States. Were this a two-thirds majority requirement to reduce
taxes, I would oppose it. Were it a two-thirds majority requirement to
declare war, I would oppose it. Were it a two-thirds majority
requirement to declare a war on poverty or to rescind a war on poverty,
I would oppose it.
I cannot think of any single thing that I could want a two-thirds
majority in this House to have to make law that is not already in the
Constitution of the United States. And the reason I feel so strongly
about that is because I believe that our country is founded on the
notion that we all are equal. The value of our votes are equal, and the
value of our Representatives in this body ought to be equal. This
proposed constitutional amendment would end that in this instance.
I call on my colleagues to consider the value that our Founding
Fathers placed on majority rule. They debated it at length. They did
not want a dictatorship. They did not want the value of the wealthy to
be greater than the value of the poor. They did not want the value of a
person in California to be less than the value of a person in North
Carolina. All they wanted was equality. That is all I want.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this proposed constitutional
amendment, to preserve and respect the Constitution of the United
States.
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