[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 18, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H73-H76]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1710
                         SUNSHINE AND APPLE PIE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the time. I 
appreciate your giving me a moment to set up my charts, because I've 
got some pretty ones down here, and I'm sorry you can't see them, Mr. 
Speaker.
  I've got here the White House. The White House isn't the President's 
house. It's our house. Every time I drive by, Mr. Speaker, every time I 
go past, I think, you know what? I own that. I may live in a little old 
apartment of my own, but when I drive by the White House, I think, I 
own a piece of that. That house belongs to me. I do hope every American 
believes that same thing. It is our house. So, if you have not gone to 
your Member of Congress to try to get a tour of the White House, I 
encourage you to do it. I encourage you to do it because it belongs to 
you, and Presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, open up those doors 
so that we can see our White House in America, Mr. Speaker. It's a 
symbol of freedom around the world.
  I printed this one up in full color. I spent a little extra. I'm 
pretty thrifty in my budget. If you know anything about me, not only do 
we cut our budget here in the United States House of Representatives, 
but I cut mine another 10 percent. Beyond that, we're going to give 
back about $300,000 to the American taxpayer, but we spent the extra 
money to put down the blue sky of optimism because this is the 
President's election night victory speech in 2008. Do you remember it? 
Do you remember it, Mr. Speaker?--because I remember it. I remember the 
promise of a better day, and here it is as he's talking about 
bipartisanship, because it gets a lot of lip service in this body, Mr. 
Speaker, but it takes hard work. It takes hard work. Here we go. He is 
talking about bipartisanship and about partisanship in particular. He 
says:
  I will resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship 
and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for far too 
long.
  He hadn't been sworn in yet. The inauguration hadn't happened yet. 
His victory speech 2008:
  I will resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship 
and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for far too 
long.
  That inspires me, Mr. Speaker. Would that it be true.
  Let's move past full color to the stark black and white, which is the 
world we're living in today. Here is the President from last month, 
giving up on that commitment of bipartisanship. When questioned about 
the partisan angle that he took throughout the Social Security debate, 
throughout the doc fix debate, throughout the unemployment debate, he 
concluded:
  It was gonna take more than a year. It was gonna take more than 2 
years. It was gonna take more than one term. Probably takes more than 
one President.
  Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I know we've only been in this 
institution just over 1 year now. It does not take time. It takes 
courage to make things happen in this body. It does not take hours. It 
takes ``I do's.'' It takes somebody standing up and saying, ``I will be 
responsible for that,'' which the President did. He said:
  I will be responsible for ushering a new era into Washington, D.C.
  As a freshman legislator, I took him at his word. Four years later, 
here we are. Can't do it in a year. Can't do it in 2 years. He couldn't 
do it in 3 years, and now he says it probably takes more than one 
President. It might take a different President, but he says it's going 
to take more than one.
  Let me take you back to sunshine and apple pie, Mr. Speaker, because 
that's what we're about here in America. We thrive on challenges. We 
thrive on opportunities to do better. We want one generation to do 
better than the previous generation, and we want the next generation to 
do better than our generation. Here is what President Obama says in 
August 2008 in talking about his Vice Presidential pick:
  After decades of steady work across the aisle, I know he'll--in 
talking about Senator Biden, now Vice President Biden--be able to help 
me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring 
Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the 
American people.
  Who doesn't believe in that, Mr. Speaker? Who doesn't believe in 
that? Who doesn't believe it's not necessarily compromise and that it 
can be consensus? Who doesn't believe on coming together to pass an 
agenda that works for the American people?
  You do, Mr. Speaker. I do.
  I'll take you back to the stark black and white of where we've come, 
of President Obama in November 2010, a year ago. When talking about why 
it is his administration has taken on such a partisan tone, he says 
this:
  I neglected some of the things that matter a lot to people, and 
rightly so that they matter: maintaining a bipartisan tone in 
Washington. I'm going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of 
those first principles.
  Mr. Speaker, you and I came here for the same reason. We came here to 
get stuff done for our constituents back home. We came here to uphold 
the Constitution and the freedoms that it preserves for our 
constituents back home. We've been stuck in an environment in 
Washington, D.C., where the Senate refuses to act on any of the 
legislation that we put forward and where it refuses to act on any of 
its own legislation. Then we have a President who says this about his 
leadership in this town:
  I neglected some of the things that matter a lot to people, and 
rightly so that they matter: maintaining a bipartisan tone in 
Washington. I'm going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of 
those first principles.
  Mr. Speaker, that's the funny thing about principles. You're not 
supposed to have to go back to them. You're supposed to stick with them 
day in, day out, in good times, in bad times. It's easy to 
have principles in the good times. Whoo, it's easy. It's when times get 
tough that principles really matter. This was a year ago, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page H74]]

The President is going to redouble his efforts to go back to some of 
those first principles of his, which is ending the partisan tone in 
Washington, D.C., in November 2010.

  Now, folks know what happened in November of 2011. We began the 
discussion of what to do to solve health care issues for our seniors 
because Medicare reimbursement rates were on their way down, and 
seniors might not have had access to care, and we wanted to protect our 
seniors to make sure that that access to care existed. We had 
unemployment benefits that were getting ready to expire, and we had 
folks who were depending on those benefits and who were trying to sort 
out how it was that we would continue those and reform that program so 
it wouldn't just provide a check but provide a way back to employment.
  We had Social Security, the payroll tax break that the President 
instituted in December of 2011, which was right after he made this 
comment that reduces the Social Security contributions of every working 
American by a third but does nothing to change the benefits that those 
working Americans get back when they retire, thus accelerating the 
bankruptcy of the Social Security Trust Fund, not to mention breaking 
that link that has been omnipresent in this country. With Social 
Security, it is not an entitlement in the welfare sense of the word. It 
is an entitlement in that you paid into it, and so you have earned it. 
You deserve it. We're changing that linkage for the very first time.
  Following that debate, I wake up in the morning down in the Seventh 
District of Georgia, in the northern suburbs there of Atlanta. I was in 
Gwinnett County. I wake up to find out the President has made recess 
appointments. Ah, I've got to tell you I went through the roof, but you 
might not have gone through the roof, Mr. Speaker. I don't know where 
everybody was, all 300 million Americans, where they were when they 
woke up to that news that morning or where they were with regard to 
their Constitution. I carry mine. I know you carry yours, Mr. Speaker, 
and I would encourage anybody who doesn't have one to contact another 
Member of Congress. We can absolutely get you the United States 
Constitution, the rule book by which everything we do here should be 
judged--should be judged. It's why recess appointments matter, Mr. 
Speaker.
  What I have here is article II, section 2 of the United States 
Constitution. It's clause 3. I'll back up just a little bit and make it 
clear for folks who haven't studied their Constitution recently that 
article I delegates the legislative powers to the United States 
Congress.

                              {time}  1720

  Article I, the very first order of business of our Founding Fathers 
in framing our Republic was to protect the people's powers here in the 
people's House and in the United States Senate, article I.
  Article II vests power in the Executive. Article II, section 2, 
clause 3: ``The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting 
commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.''
  It seems pretty straightforward, but it is not. That is what it so 
wonderful about our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers had the wisdom 
to say enough without saying too much.
  Shortly after the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander 
Hamilton was writing on this topic. When he read this very same clause, 
he read this: ``The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate.'' What Alexander 
Hamilton saw is that the only vacancies that can be filled are those 
vacancies that occur during a recess of the Senate; not vacancies that 
are getting filled then, but vacancies that actually occurred then.
  This is important language. It is important language because I live 
640 miles away from the United States Capitol. I happen to travel with 
my friends at Delta, and they get me here in an hour and a half; but if 
I had to get on my horse and ride, it would take a little while.
  There is good reason there was recess appointments going on in the 
founding of this Republic, Mr. Speaker. I hope we can get back to 
having more recesses here. Why in the world we have let this Congress 
evolve into a full-time job that takes place year round, I do not know. 
The general assembly in Georgia meets for 40 days out of the year. I 
tell folks back home I will have achieved success when it is we in 
Washington, D.C., who only meet for 40 days out of a year because we 
have sent that power that has been gradually stolen from the people, 
stolen from the community, stolen from the States, and return that 
power to those communities.
  But it was a real issue in the early days of our Republic that if 
there was a recess, we wanted to give the President the power to 
continue the Republic even when you couldn't get a hold of the United 
States Senate for confirmation. Well, in the age of iPads and 
BlackBerrys and fax machines, it is not that hard to get in touch with 
folks. It is easy to reconvene the Senate. But still on the books 
today, ``The President shall have the power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate.''
  You may be asking, Rob, why do you even care about this? You are in 
the House. This doesn't concern you. Let me tell you, this concerns me 
and it concerns every American because it concerns the rule book by 
which our Republic is governed. If we decide that the rule book doesn't 
matter, it will be something small today and it is going to be 
something medium-sized tomorrow, and it is going to be something huge a 
year from now, and the freedoms that our Constitution has so ably 
protected for over 200 years will soon be gone.
  This isn't a partisan fight. This is an American fight. I will tell 
you that when we had a Republican President in the White House and 
Republican Members controlling this U.S. House and Republican Members 
controlling the U.S. Senate, power left this House and went down to the 
executive branch. Republicans allowed legislative power to leave this 
House and get transferred to the executive branch.
  We have got to be on duty all the time. It is not Republican/
Democrat; it is Executive/U.S. House. Why? Because when our framers 
were framing the Constitution, they knew tyranny of the Executive was 
what was to be feared. King of England. Tyranny of the Executive was 
what was to be feared, and so they invested most of the power in the 
Congress, in the House, in the Senate. This is where our framers 
trusted that power to reside, but they gave the President the power to 
make appointments in recess of the Senate.
  Why is this important at all? Article II, section 2, clause 2, which 
is known as the advice and consent clause: The President ``shall have 
the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make 
treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he 
shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
shall appoint Ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and 
Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United 
States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for.
  Hear this: The President absolutely, positively has the power to 
appoint whomever he wants, by and with the advice and consent of the 
United States Senate. If the Senate is not in session, clause 3 takes 
over during those times. The President shall have the power to fill 
those vacancies, and it shall not extend past that one session.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, what happened over Christmas, as the rights and 
privileges of the American people were stolen out from under us here in 
the United States House and Senate and transferred to the executive 
branch, is that the President said--and you will remember the quote. He 
said: If I can't do it with Congress, I will go around Congress.
  Do you remember that?
  If I can't pass my agenda with Congress, I will go around Congress.
  Tyranny of the Executive, the most fundamental fear our framers had. 
The most fundamental fear was that an Executive would decide that he or 
she could do whatever they wanted without the consent of the 
government.
  We have to stand up as Republicans and Democrats and say there is a 
right way and a wrong way to run this town, that there is a rule book 
by which this town is governed, that there is 200

[[Page H75]]

years of precedent that tells us how appointments must occur, how that 
advice must occur when those appointments can be made.
  If you followed any of this--and we'll talk about this more in the 
weeks to come because it goes to the bedrock of our Republic. Again, if 
you let your reverence for the Constitution slide when it is convenient 
for you, you're going to find it pulled out from under you when you 
need it most.

  Mr. Speaker, I know that when you swore your oath to the people of 
this country, you swore your oath not to protect the Constitution from 
Democratic Presidents, not to protect the Constitution from Republican 
Presidents, but to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign 
and domestic. Your oath, whether there is a Republican in the White 
House or a Democrat in the White House, is to make sure that the 
people's power remains here with the people. We legislate and the 
President executes.
  This isn't a mystery. This isn't something I came up with in the 
Seventh District of Georgia. This is something President Bush and 
Senator Harry Reid struggled with during the Bush administration. This 
is something all Congresses and Presidents struggle with. The struggle 
is not new. The complete abdication of constitutional responsibility, 
that is new. The deciding that if you can't do it with the 
Constitution, you will go around the Constitution, that is new.
  Let me tell you what Harry Reid said, Mr. Speaker. I hold in my hand 
here a copy of that page from the Congressional Record.
  As you can see, we record absolutely every word that goes on here. We 
don't want folks to be misquoted. We don't want the debate to go on and 
folks not to be able to remember what was said. We want to hold folks 
accountable to the people back home.
  Let me tell you what Harry Reid said as it was recorded right here by 
the reporters, published in the Congressional Record.

                              {time}  1730

  He said on November 16, 2007: Mr. President, the Senate will be 
coming in for pro forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to 
prevent recess appointments.
  Now, I understand there's a lot of legalese that goes on here in 
Washington, D.C. We have the Constitution right here. Article II, 
section 2, clause 2; Article II, section 2, clause 3, this is the 
important part. This is the important part. With the advice and consent 
of the Senate, the President shall appoint, and the President has the 
power to appoint without the Senate during recess.
  But now we are in what's called pro forma sessions because the 
Constitution also says that no body of Congress, neither the House nor 
the Senate, can adjourn for more than 3 days without the consent of the 
other body. We've seen that in some State legislatures across the 
country, haven't we, where folks just take their toys and go home, Mr. 
Speaker. They decide they don't like the way things are going, so they 
just leave.
  The Founding Fathers 200 years ago sensed that challenge and wrote it 
into the fabric of our founding document that no body of Congress, 
neither the House nor the Senate, shall adjourn for more than 3 days 
without the consent of the other. And what that leaves you then with is 
these bodies in what they call pro forma session. We're in. We're open. 
Every 72 hours, the Speaker comes up here to the microphone and gavels 
us in. The House is open for business. When business is done, they 
gavel us out. Is it a full day? No, it's not. Are we in session? Yes, 
we are. And this is a process that has gone on for decades, in fact, 
dozens of decades. And in November of 2007 when Senator Harry Reid was 
trying to prevent President George Bush from making recess 
appointments, he said this: We're not going to go into recess. Hah. 
Hah. I've got responsibilities to the people back home, Harry Reid 
said, to advise and consent on all of your appointments. I think you're 
going to try to pull one past us when we're gone for Thanksgiving. In 
fact, I think you're going to try to pull one past us while we're gone 
for Christmas. So what am I going to do, the Senate will be coming in 
for pro forma sessions during the holiday to prevent recess 
appointments.
  Mr. Speaker, this was 2007, when it was well known that the law of 
the land is that while the Senate is in for pro forma sessions, no 
President--not President Bush and not President Obama--can make 
appointments without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. 
November of 2007; well known. Harry Reid, presiding over the U.S. 
Senate, issuing those words: We will remain in pro forma session to 
prevent recess appointments.
  And this President, whose Justice Department put together literally 
dozens of pages to defend this departure from constitutional tradition, 
to defend this rejection of 200 years of congressional precedent, to 
defend this going around Congress, said no, we think you can do it. The 
majority leader of the United States Senate knew you couldn't do it. 
The Framers of the Constitution knew you couldn't do it. And this 
President, as if it was nothing, that's what troubles me the most, Mr. 
Speaker, as if it was nothing, pulled together a press conference and 
said, I'm doing it any way--Richard Cordray, Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau. This is a confirmation that didn't occur during a 
recess, didn't occur during a recess. The President made his nomination 
while the Senate was absolutely in session. The Senate voted, Mr. 
Speaker, and did not confirm. Could not get the 60 votes necessary to 
move forward on the confirmation, took the vote, couldn't move forward. 
The vote occurred. It occurred in the negative.
  And while the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate remained in pro forma 
sessions, working out those issues I talked about earlier, the doc fix 
for our friends on Medicare to make sure that the resources were still 
available for unemployment, to make sure the program was reformed and 
funded for Social Security taxes, to make sure that the trust fund was 
funded and that workers were satisfied, while all of those things were 
happening in this body during session, the President decided, no, in 
fact, we were not in session, and he would make appointments. And he 
started with one that had already been rejected by the United States 
Senate. Then went on to name three more members to the National Labor 
Relations Board. That was a smaller press conference for that one, Mr. 
Speaker, because that one was much more controversial. No press 
conference at all, in fact, just a press release. And then the 
President said: Look out, I may do more. I may do more. You know what, 
I kind of like this thing where I get to do whatever I want to do. I 
kind of like this thing where it doesn't matter what the Senate says, 
it doesn't matter what the Representatives of the States say, it 
doesn't matter what the representatives of the people say; I've got an 
agenda, and Congress is standing in my way. And if you'll not work with 
me, Congress, I will go around you.
  Article II delegates authority to the Executive. Article I delegates 
authority to this House. Article I delegates authority to the people's 
House. You cannot go around the people in America. I can't do it. The 
President can't do it. The military can't do it. That's not what we do. 
Are there countries around the globe that do that? Yes, there are. Our 
forefathers fled those countries to come here where the only power 
vested in government is that which we the people give it. Hear that, 
Mr. Speaker. You know it to be true. The only power held in this city 
in the capital of the free world, the center of free speech and freedom 
of religion, the beacon of hope and prosperity all across the world, 
every bit of power that is here is here because the American people 
elected to share it.
  There's no inherent authority in being the President of the United 
States; it comes from the people. There's absolutely no authority in 
being a Congressman of the United States; it comes from the people.
  The President has the power to execute the laws passed by this body. 
But he does not have the power to make new laws on his own. We've heard 
that from executive branch agencies across the board. The President has 
the power to choose who he would like to be in those positions of power 
in those agencies, and he can make those selections with the advice and 
consent of the United States Senate.

  This isn't about me, Mr. Speaker. It's not even about this body. When 
the

[[Page H76]]

President tramples on the Constitution like this, he's trampling on the 
Senate's powers. But when he tramples on the Constitution, he tramples 
on my freedom, and he tramples on your freedom. And he tramples on all 
of our freedoms, and we cannot let it stand.
  What are we going to do? Well, candidly, what makes this so troubling 
is the Constitution didn't actually imagine that we would ever elect an 
Executive that would simply go his own way. There is no slap on the 
wrist. We can't send the U.S. House Sergeant of Arms down there to 
prosecute this kind of offense. What happens is it plays itself out in 
the courts, and we're going to see it. Everyone who's regulated by this 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they're going to sue. Folks who 
are regulated by the NLRB, they're going to sue. It's going to go 
across the street to the United States Supreme Court to try to decide 
about this division of powers. And if it gets there, folks are going to 
decide in favor of the very plainly written words of the United States 
Constitution.
  But, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't have to be like this. The President said 
I'm going to change the tone in Washington. The President said we can 
work together to implement an agenda for the American people. Mr. 
Speaker, you stand here ready to work. I stand here ready to work. And 
the President said: I can't work with you, I'm going around you.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't know who the President thinks we are, but I'm a 
mouthpiece for a million Americans back home in the Seventh District of 
Georgia. I come here with their hopes and dreams. You're the voice of a 
million constituents in your home State, Mr. Speaker, and you come here 
to do their bidding. The President isn't fighting with this House, the 
President is fighting with the American people. And I say to you, Mr. 
President, if you get on the wrong side--Mr. Speaker, I encourage you 
to share with the President--if he gets on the wrong side of the 
American people, he's on the wrong side.

                              {time}  1740

  We can work together, and we do work together.
  And I encourage folks to watch 2012. I had great hopes, Mr. Speaker, 
for what would happen in 2012. And the President's very first act was 
not to work with Congress, but to go around Congress. The license plate 
of the vehicle that ran over the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, it reads 
Illinois. And we have to stand up and reverse.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank the Speaker for the time.

                          ____________________