[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S4372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE ORIGINATION CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on Wednesday, May 17, at page S. 4069 of 
the Record, the distinguished minority leader announced, ``I am going 
to demand that every single appropriations bill that comes to the 
Senate before it can be completed be passed in the House first because 
that is regular order.'' To be clear he repeated, ``We are going to 
require the regular order when it comes to appropriations bills.''
  The Senator refers to the origination clause of our Constitution Art. 
1, Sec. 7, Cl. 1. The origination clause states that ``All bills for 
raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.'' The 
meaning of this clause is widely known, and I do not know why the 
distinguished minority leader would attempt to make an erroneous claim 
before those who know better. I do know why he did not challenge his 99 
colleagues to correct this statement, as he did with another. The 
reason is that many could have come forward to tell him he was 
mistaken.
  When I open Riddick's Senate Procedure, I read that ``[i]n 1935, the 
Chair ruled that there is no Constitutional limitation upon the Senate 
to initiate an appropriation bill.'' The House does claim ``the 
exclusive right to originate all general appropriations bills.'' 
Specific appropriations, however, ``have frequently originated in the 
Senate.''
  If the Senator intends to say that there is no precedent for the 
initiation of appropriation bills in the Senate, that is false. Perhaps 
there is some confusion between ``raising revenue'' and 
``appropriating.'' The former the Senate cannot do. The latter it can.
  Also, the room the Senate has to work within is broad rather than 
narrow. The Rules of the House of Representatives note that ``[a] bill 
raising revenue incidentally [has been] held not to infringe upon the 
Constitutional prerogative of the House to originate revenue 
legislation.''
  The courts agree with these constitutional interpretations. In fact, 
as recently as 1989, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth District in 
U.S. v. King, 891 F.2d 780, 781 ruled that where a bill does not 
qualify as a revenue bill, it is not subject to the provisions of the 
origination clause.
  The United States Supreme Court, in Twin City Nat. Bank of New 
Brighton v. Nebecker, 167 U.S. 196, 202. ruled in an 1897 decision, 
which is cited as precedent to this day, that ``revenue bills are those 
that levy taxes, in the strict sense of the word, and are not bills for 
other purposes which may incidentally create revenue.''
  On another occasion, the Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Norton, 91 U.S. 
566, 569 (1875) said that ``[t]he construction of the [origination 
clause] limitation is practically well settled by the uniform action of 
Congress'' and that ``it `has been confined to bills to levy taxes in 
the strict sense of the word, and has not been understood to extend to 
bills for other purposes which incidentally create revenue.' ''
  Indeed, in 1997, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in 
Walthall v. U.S., 131 F.3d 1289 ruled that the Tax Equity and Fiscal 
Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) did not violate the originations 
clause.
  It was not the intent of our Founding Fathers not to allow the Senate 
to decide how to spend government monies. Obviously, we must do that. 
Almost every action we take requires some money to be spent. What the 
Founding Fathers wanted to achieve with the origination clause was a 
check on government by which the most representative body had to 
authorize the extraction from the people of taxes.
  The only obstacle I know of to the Senate passing certain 
appropriation bills is the objection of the distinguished minority 
leader. He claims, ``This is getting to be more and more a second House 
of Representatives.'' Who is making it so, I ask.
  According to Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, Sec. 
3.2, p. 134 it is the other body in which ``[i]nfringement of the 
Senate on the constitutional prerogative of the House to initiate 
revenue measures may be raised * * * as a matter of privilege.''

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