[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 108 (Friday, July 11, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H6127-H6130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE THREE COEQUAL BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, and I appreciate
your being down here with me. I think about the just a couple of years
that you and I have served in this Congress, and I think back, and I
hope ``Schoolhouse Rock'' was on TV when you were coming along.
The thing I did when the Internet came out--yes, I was old enough to
remember when the Internet came out--was I looked up the ``Schoolhouse
Rock'' video, and I looked up ``I'm just a bill sitting here on Capitol
Hill'' because it tells the tale--and we learned that before we learned
all of our times tables, we learned about how a bill becomes a law.
We learned about what this great experiment in self-governance is,
and it is the United States of America. It makes me sad that it comes
on less on Saturday mornings than it used to, and now, parents are down
on watching as much TV on Saturday mornings.
I hope ``Schoolhouse Rock'' is still required viewing in every family
in America because the whole process of how a bill becomes a law is
critically important to who we are as a people--as a people.
I know it happens to you, Mr. Speaker, like it happens to me. I go
back home, and I am the Congressman. I am the Congressman. I am holding
the townhall meeting. I am standing up in front of the room. Maybe I am
up on the stage, I have got a big microphone.
There are all these folks sitting out there in the audience, and it
dawns on me that I am the servant, and all the bosses are sitting out
there. That is what is so wonderful about what goes on here. You and I
have the great privilege of representing a small slice of America; and,
in my case, it is the Seventh District of Georgia--but the bosses live
at home.
Mr. Speaker, if we don't do this the way ``Schoolhouse Rock'' laid it
out, if
[[Page H6128]]
we don't go through that process each and every time for how a bill
becomes a law, the loser is each one of those individuals who show up
at my townhall meetings who are actually the bosses of this country.
The loser is the citizen in America who should be sitting on the
board of directors, but who gets shut out of the decisionmaking process
if we don't follow that simple cartoon that we all became fond of
growing up.
Mr. Speaker, you know better than I do that there was a Supreme Court
decision that came out last week. It was called the Noel Canning
decision, and that Supreme Court--you know, we talk about it all the
time, Mr. Speaker.
I wish I had a microphone that went out to the folks back in their
offices who were watching this on TV. We could do a quick telephone
poll of who folks think the liberal Justices are and who folks think
the conservative Justices are and who folks think the middle is, but
that Court is divided.
Oh, Mr. Speaker, you know there are some hardcore conservatives
sitting on the Supreme Court today, and there are some hardcore
liberals sitting on that very same bench.
Nine of those folks sitting up there on the bench--and I read the
decisions when they come out, Mr. Speaker, and it is 5-4 this, 6-3
that. It is these starkly divided opinions about what the direction of
America ought to be, and I get that. We are a sharply divided country.
We see that in Presidential elections, and we see that in congressional
elections.
This decision that came out last week, Mr. Speaker, this Noel Canning
decision was decided 9-0 by the Supreme Court--9-0. It did not matter
how hardcore conservative the Justice was, and it did not matter how
hardcore liberal the Justice was. Every single Justice agreed.
What they agreed on--and it gives me no pleasure to talk about it--
what they agreed on is that the President of the United States exceeded
the authority granted to him by this United States Constitution and
that the United States Congress did absolutely nothing to rein that in;
and so the Supreme Court, 2 years later, had to make the decision that
it was wrong.
Now, I get the balance of powers, Mr. Speaker. I get it. I get that
the Congress is here as article I, and we make decisions; and then our
bills have to be signed by the President there in article II.
I get it that, if we pass the wrong kind of legislation and it is
unconstitutional, the courts, in article III, get to make that
decision--but, dadgum it, we have that responsibility as the 435
Members who serve in this Chamber who are not the bosses of this
country, but who are the servants of the true bosses of this country
back home, we have the responsibility to maintain the authority on
Capitol Hill that the Constitution provides.
Last week, the Court said, unanimously, 9-0, that the President can't
just decide what the law is and what the law isn't, that the law exists
independent of the President, and his job is to follow those laws.
Now, that is pretty clear here. You get into article II--in fact, we
all take that oath when we get elected. We swear to uphold and defend
the Constitution. The executive power shall be vested in the President
of the United States, the legislative power vested here, and so the
Supreme Court said, unanimously, that the President had overstepped his
bound and that what he did was unconstitutional.
I have a quote that they used--and it is important to me, Mr.
Speaker, as I suspect you hear the same thing from your constituents
back home. Folks say: Why can't you get something done? Why can't you
get something done in Washington? What are you guys arguing about? Why
don't you get something done? Aren't there some things out there that
you can do to make a difference in people's lives?
I am proud to say that you and I have collaborated on a number of
those things, but folks feel the friction in this town, the friction of
people who believe different things about what the future of this
country ought to look like.
Here is what the Supreme Court said--and I love it in its simplicity,
Mr. Speaker. The Supreme Court said last week that regardless--the
Recess Appointments Clause was the clause that was being debated, this
is the exceeding of his constitutional authority that the President
embarked upon.
``Regardless, the Recess Appointments Clause is not designed to
overcome serious institutional friction.''
It ``is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It
simply provides a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the
Senate is away during a recess.''
Here, as in other contexts, friction between the branches is an
inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure. The friction
that you hear about back home, Mr. Speaker, the frustration that our
constituents express about why folks can't get something done, why
can't you agree, why is there a big argument going on, that friction,
the Supreme Court says, is an inevitable consequence of our
constitutional structure.
The concern then, Mr. Speaker, is in the name of avoiding that
friction, some folks want to throw out parts of this Constitution, and
my question--not just for Members in this body, Mr. Speaker, but for
every single constituent who votes in our national elections--what is
more important? Is it more important to get something done? Is it the
ends that are the most important, or is it the means?
The means that were provided to us were provided to us in 1787, that
great summer in Philadelphia, where the best minds of our land came
together and laid out a structure that has successfully protected the
power of the people for over 200 years.
Is it the ends, or is it the means? I tell you--and I don't attribute
any bad motives to the President, Mr. Speaker, I don't. I don't want to
attribute bad motives to the President.
I will tell you that, in making the recess appointments that led to
this unanimous decision that what the President did was
unconstitutional, the President prioritized the ends.
He knew who he wanted in these job positions. He knew the Senate
would never approve these people for these job positions, and so he
said: Who cares what the Senate thinks? I am going to put them in
anyway.
The Supreme Court said: No, you are not. No, you are not.
Now, the great shame for us, Mr. Speaker, is that it should have been
the Congress that said that. It should have been the Congress that said
that.
More specifically, it should have been the Senate right across this
Chamber that said that, Mr. Speaker. It should have been the Senate
that stood up for the power that is not their power, but is the power
of the American people to engage in this great balance that is our form
of government, this great balance that has inevitable friction.
We have got to decide for ourselves, Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber and
across the country: Are we Republicans and Democrats? Or are we
Americans? Are we Green Party folks and Independent folks? Or are we
Americans? Is this about which party wins and which party loses? Or is
this about America?
America is not a place on a map, Mr. Speaker. You know this better
than most. America is not a place on the map. America is an idea.
America is a set of values.
There is so much more that unites us in this country than divides us.
My challenge to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is that we rise to the
occasion to protect and defend this document.
No matter how small, no matter how simple, and no matter how much it
gets in the way of getting something done, this U.S. Constitution is
designed to protect those freedoms, to protect those common goals, and
to protect that which makes us who we are as Americans.
I am not trying to figure out who to blame, Mr. Speaker. I am trying
to figure out how to solve it. When the Supreme Court--again, if you
have watched the Supreme Court, these folks, they can't agree on what
time to meet, Mr. Speaker. They disagree about so, so much--5-4
decision after 5-4 decision.
This divided Court--it is almost a term, Mr. Speaker, it is not the
``Court,'' it is the ``divided Court,'' that is the way it always shows
up in the newspaper, the ``divided Court''--9-0 said this Congress and
the American people have abdicated their responsibility to rein in this
executive branch and ensure that the law was followed.
{time} 1215
And here is the thing, Mr. Speaker, and you know what I am talking
about:
[[Page H6129]]
I signed up to be on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The
Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that is the committee that
is responsible for going in and making sure the laws are followed and
faithfully executed. And I joined that committee, Mr. Speaker, and you
may think it foolish, but I joined that committee because I thought
Mitt Romney was going to be the next President of the United States.
And for too long, I had seen Republicans in Congress protect Republican
Presidents and Democrats in Congress protect Democratic Presidents, and
I haven't seen enough folks protecting the Constitution, protecting
article I, protecting the power that the Constitution vests in each and
every one of our constituents back home, and so I said I am going to
sign up for this Oversight and Government Reform Committee because I am
a hardcore Republican and I want to be the hardcore Republican who
rides herd over the Romney administration, because you don't get a free
pass because we are from the same party. You don't get a free pass
because the Constitution doesn't give you a free pass. You don't get a
free pass because my obligation is not to you as a fellow Republican,
my obligation is to my constituents and to my country as an American.
I wanted to bring back that idea that we as a Congress, not we as
Republicans and Democrats in Congress, but we as a Congress, not we as
the House, but we as the House and the Senate, we as the Congress have
a common goal and a common responsibility when it comes to the future
of this country.
Now, sitting over there on the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, folks just think I am a political hack. I try to give advice
and counsel to the administration about what they are doing wrong.
Folks say, he is just a Republican, that is why he doesn't like what is
going on. Nonsense; 9-0, the entire United States Supreme Court said
what is going on in the administration is wrong; not wrong as in a
mistake, but wrong as in the Constitution prohibits it. Wrong as in it
is not allowed by that most powerful law that governs this land, the
United States Constitution, and everybody in this town knew it. They
knew it the day that the President took that action. And yet, too many
in this town were silent.
We have got to do better, Mr. Speaker. We have got to do better.
There is still more that unites us than divides us. Love of this
Constitution that protects our freedoms is one of those things.
So where can we start, Mr. Speaker? Where can we start? I have one
recommendation, and it is a small one. I have had the experience in my
3\1/2\ years in Congress, Mr. Speaker, and you may have had the same
experience, that if you can begin to agree on the little things, then
the bigger things get a little easier to agree upon. You sort out those
things that you have agreement on first, you lock those in as part of
the final deal, and then you go out and you tackle the bigger things.
So you start small, and you build. That is true. It is true of
exercise, it is true of almost anything. Start small and build.
I am thinking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mr.
Speaker. You may think, Rob, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
for Pete's sake, that is just some little-bitty agency over there under
the Federal Reserve. Well, it is not. It is a big agency. It is a
growing agency. But the most important part is what I said finally in
that sentence, it is under the Federal Reserve. This is what happened.
The year was 2010, and this body, this body, led by the Financial
Services Committee chairman at that time, Barney Frank of
Massachusetts, passed what has come to be known as the Dodd-Frank Act,
named after Chairman Frank on this side and Chairman Dodd over on the
Senate side, and it went after Wall Street. It went after Wall Street,
and this was in the aftermath of bank failures. This was in the
environment when folks were concerned about what the economic future of
America would be, much like they still are today, and this purported to
solve so many of these challenges through more regulation.
Now, we can argue about whether or not that was a good plan or was a
bad plan. I think it was a bad plan. I think it is costing us economic
growth, not helping us with economic growth, but that is not my point
here today. My point here today is, as a body, as a U.S. House of
Representatives, when we passed that Dodd-Frank bill, which went over
to the Senate and was passed, and which went to the President's desk
and was signed and is now the law of the land, we created an agency
called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and we specifically
and exclusively decided that this agency would not be accountable to
the Congress in any way, shape or form.
I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker. Here we are, we have
been charged individually and collectively with protecting the United
States Constitution, which divvies up power in this country. And what
is so unique about this country is that the power does not come from
government and is given to the people; the power comes from the people
and is lent to government for a short period of time. The power belongs
to the people, and it is lent to the government for a short period of
time.
Yet in our collective wisdom, and I certainly use that term loosely,
we decided to create a brand new Federal agency, capable of spending
hundreds of millions of dollars per year, capable of implementing
hundreds of billions of dollars in regulations on America's small
businesses, that we would create this agency out of the air. It had
never before existed, and that we would create this brand new agency
and we would place it somewhere beyond the oversight of this body. That
we would bestow it with powers to crush businesses, to enable
businesses, give it these powers and place it somewhere beyond the
control of this institution.
It is unique, Mr. Speaker, as you know, in that its funding stream
comes directly from the Federal Reserve. That would be the guys who
print the money. It turns out when you can print the money and lend the
money, you end up making a lot of money. So accountability over that
money is almost nonexistent.
There is a renovation going on at the CFPB right now. This is an
agency that has been around for 3 years, and it has a renovation going
on. The most recent inspector general's report tells us they are
spending $215 million to renovate their building, almost a quarter of a
billion dollars, just to renovate, just to renovate a building.
Now, when I try to evaluate building space, I try to do it on a
square-foot basis. What is it costing per square foot to renovate,
because you do have to renovate. That is a fair business decision.
According to the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, this amounts to a $590 per square foot renovation cost,
$590 per square foot. Well, if you are in the real estate business,
your jaw has already dropped. But if you are not in the real estate
business, let me give you that comparatively.
I don't know if you have ever been to Trump World Tower in New York,
Mr. Speaker, but $334 per square foot is its cost. The most expensive
city in the country, $334 per square foot, compared to $590 with what
the CFPB is doing.
I don't know if you have ever been out to Las Vegas, Mr. Speaker, but
you have probably seen Ocean's Eleven a time or two, and the big
Bellagio hotel and casino with all those big fountains out front. It is
the backdrop of so many movies Hollywood puts out these days, and it is
really kind of the definition of decadence in that part of the world--
$330 per square foot versus $590 at the CFPB. Now, why do I bring that
up? Maybe $590 is the right answer. Maybe it is. Maybe whatever is
going on over at the CFPB is so important that it has to cost twice as
much to build their offices as any of the most luxurious office spaces
or hotel spaces in the country. Maybe that is true, but I can't tell
because I'm not allowed, as a Representative here in this body, to do
oversight over that institution. Why? Because its funding comes
directly from the Federal Reserve, not from this Congress.
How does all of this come together, Mr. Speaker? Well, the answer is
still in this little old book, still in these little pages. From the
summer of 1787, there is a fabulous painting right outside these
Chamber doors, Mr. Speaker, of that summer in 1787. George Washington
is presiding, Ben Franklin is
[[Page H6130]]
seated there. All of the Constitutional Convention delegates are there
as they craft this document. And what they decided was, we were going
to have to have an executive to execute the laws. You can't execute the
laws by committee. It was going to be too complicated, you need an
executive to execute the laws. But an all-powerful executive is what
those constitutional delegates had been fleeing in England. That is
what the revolution was all about, so they were suspicious of an all-
powerful executive, so they created the Congress first, article I, and
said the power of the purse, the power of the purse, spending of the
money, will reside here. Because if you cut off the money to that
executive who has run amok, he won't be able to run amok any longer.
That was the theory. That was the plan.
And yet this body is creating institutions--and by ``this body,'' I
mean before you and I arrived here, Mr. Speaker, not on our watch--but
just 4 short years ago, this body began to create government agencies
and institutions that were beyond the reach of our oversight, beyond
our ability to defund and beyond our ability to control.
It may be the best agency on the planet, but it shouldn't be beyond
the control of the people.
Mr. Speaker, I will end where I began. Are we Republicans and
Democrats first, or are we Americans first? Are we northerners and
southerners, are we Independents and Green Party? Are we MoveOn and Tea
Party? Who are we first? And the answer for me has always been I am a
citizen first. I am an American first. This great country that I have
inherited--I didn't build it, I didn't sign my name to the Declaration
of Independence pledging my life and my fortune to success, no. Can you
imagine? Can you imagine what it took in a time of great uncertainty
when the die had not been cast for freedom to stand up and say, My name
is Rob Woodall and I pledge my life and my fortune that freedom will
come to this land?
No, Mr. Speaker, that is what I have inherited. That is what you have
inherited. That is what every single child born on these sacred shores
inherits, what every immigrant who travels from far and takes that
oath, what they inherit, and it is our responsibility to preserve it.
When we concern ourselves with the end and believe the end justifies
the means, we will trample this Constitution at every occasion--at
every occasion. And you need to look no further than the Supreme Court
decision last week, Mr. Speaker, where unanimously these men and women
entrusted with upholding this Constitution said friction between the
branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.
I dare say an intentional consequence of our constitutional structure.
I know there is a lot of pressure on folks, Mr. Speaker, from their
constituents back home to get something done, but implicit in that is
to get something done the right way--to get something done the right
way.
There are serious men and women on both sides of this Chamber, Mr.
Speaker; there are serious men and women on both sides of this Capitol;
there are serious men and women working in the administration who all
love this country and want it to be better tomorrow than it was
yesterday. We cannot allow our zeal for results to trample the document
that has enabled the results that we have had so far.
And so I challenge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, whether you are the
most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat, or anywhere
in between, I challenge each and every one of us to decide that if we
have a bad process, we are going to end up with a bad product. But that
our Constitution, no matter how cumbersome, our Constitution, no matter
how deliberate, our Constitution provides that framework where, whether
we win or lose on a particular policy, our principles of freedom and
opportunity will forever be preserved.
I want to get good policy out of this Chamber, too. I want to get
policy out of this town. I want to make a difference in the lives of
people back home, but not at the expense of the birthright that I have
inherited, which is this great country and the experiment in self-
government. I believe we are worthy of that birthright. I believe we
can rise to that occasion, but it is not going to happen by accident,
and it is not going to happen just inside the four walls of this
building. It has got to happen in the hearts and the minds of every
single family in this country, who are the true leaders of this Nation,
and I hope those will be their instructions to us each and every day.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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