[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 147 (Thursday, December 4, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H8663-H8667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN REMEMBRANCE OF DWAYNE ALONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
King) for 30 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to address you here
on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and I
always appreciate that opportunity to come here and voice some of the
things that are expressions often of the voices of my district and also
the voices of Iowans, the voices of the American people.
I happen to live in a place that is the best place in the world to
live and raise a family. The anchor of the values that are there and
the culture in the neighborhood are reflected in the people.
I rise today, and I come to the floor to express my sadness at the
passing of a very, very good friend and a great man, Dwayne Alons.
Dwayne Alons passed away Saturday night after a short but brutal
illness with cancer.
His life meant so much to so many of us. He lived in Sioux County.
Sioux County is that place where I would think, if I would go to sleep
and wake up in the park in Sioux County, I would think I might have
died and gone to heaven.
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It has got the best balance of faith and churches and economics and
education and families and culture and work ethic and neighborliness.
It has got the best balance of anyplace I know, and Dwayne Alons
contributed so much to that.
In almost all of my years that I was in the State legislature, I
served in the senate while he served in the house of representatives.
When I needed a partner on a cause over in the house, it was
Representative Dwayne Alons that I called upon, and it was he that came
over to talk to me when I needed some help on my side or if he needed
help on the senate side where I served. We stood in the same
philosophical and ideological square year after year after year.
The 6-year endeavor that I had embarked upon in 1996 and early 1997
to establish English as the official language of the State of Iowa,
that effort came up short in the first general assembly. That was 1997
and 1998; then, in 1999 and 2000, that effort came up short again.
In the next general assembly, I talked to Dwayne Alons, and he agreed
that he would be the individual carrying the bill in the house of
representatives, and there, in that general assembly, after 6 years of
trying, we were able to pass English as the official language over from
the senate to the house, and there, Representative Dwayne Alons floor-
managed the bill, and we were able to put that bill on then-Governor
Tom Vilsack, a Democrat's desk, where he signed the bill that
established English as the official language of the State of Iowa. That
was a crowning achievement of much of the work that we had done
together.
We also opposed the Iowa State Supreme Court's decision called Varnum
v. Brien, when the supreme court, magically, unanimously decided that,
somehow, in the ratification of our State constitution and their
equivalent of the 14th Amendment of the Equal Protection Clause that
they had magically written in there, that marriage didn't necessarily
have to be between a man and a woman.
We were able to pass legislation earlier in 1998 that established
that a marriage in Iowa would be between one male and one female.
Representative Alons definitely supported that. When the judges
unanimously decided that they could rewrite Iowa law without a
legitimate legal and logical constitutional basis, it was Dwayne Alons
that stepped up to defend marriage between a man and a woman.
He did so without apology. He did so without reservation. He did so
because he always acted on his convictions. He carried deep
convictions.
He had a style not at all similar to mine, Mr. Speaker, a quiet,
understated, respectful style, a strong, faithful man who was also a
prayer warrior. Whenever there was a Bible study group, you could look
around and Dwayne Alons and his wife, Clarice, would be there.
I would like to just chronicle some of the milestones along in his
life that he represented the Fourth and then I think, later on, the
Fifth District in the State of Iowa.
He also joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot, an F-16
pilot, and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Iowa Air
National Guard, the 185th--the beloved 185th. He raised a pilot, his
son Kevin.
That example that was before his four children was one that they
acted on. He had such an influence on their lives, on the lives of
their four children and their 14 grandchildren--a quiet, respectful,
staid, resolute voice that lived by example. When he spoke, you knew
you wanted to hear what Dwayne Alons had to say.
He was stricken by cancer in September and taken just right after
Thanksgiving, but his wife, Clarice, they had 47-plus years and the
four children that they raised and the 14 grandchildren, and their
daughters-in-law and sons-in-law and a host of family and friends
remember Dwayne, remember him as I did, grateful to God that we had him
as a gift to us and had an opportunity to get to know him, an
opportunity to call him a friend, to work with him, to pray with him.
On his last days, I had the privilege to stop and see him in the
hospital where I think we all knew that he was in his last days, and I
was able to go to his bedside and hold his hand and offer a deep prayer
with and for him, and the strength that he had left after I said,
``Amen,'' he said, ``Now I am going to say a short prayer of my own,''
which I could hear--I could barely hear--but in that, there was a
message to me, ``Don't let up, don't give up, keep up the fight, keep
up the fight,'' as Dwayne did for his whole lifetime in a quiet and a
polite and a respectful way, but as a leader.
He led by example, he led by conviction, he led with the moral
authority of a man who knew who he was, a man who understood his faith,
a man who understood the Constitution and the rule of law, the
structure of government and his role in society as a father, as a
grandfather, as a husband, as a friend, as a State representative, as a
brigadier general in the Air Guard, and as a father of another officer
in the Guard.
As I think about Dwayne Alons and think about having to say goodbye
to such a good friend, I look at the back of the announcement here for
the funeral, and it couldn't be more fitting. It is something that, of
course, I think the language has been embedded into the hearts and the
minds of the American people, and it is the poem ``High Flight.''
As an F-16 pilot, as a general, he always saw the clear blue skies,
and ``High Flight'' says this:
Oh. I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of Sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew--
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod.
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
That was the life of Dwayne Alons, my pheasant-hunting friend, my
legislating friend, my Bible-studying friend, my air warrior friend,
and my prayer warrior friend, General Representative Dwayne Alons, may
he rest in peace, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate your attention to his life and the opportunity to place
some of these memories into the Congressional Record here. His last ask
of me and his last prayer, which was not for him but for me, tells you
something about the sacrifice and the will of the man that we have lost
as a servant to our country, but his inspiration lives beyond, keep it
up, don't let up--understood the Constitution.
Here we sit today, Mr. Speaker, with a President who lectured on the
Constitution for 10 years as an adjunct professor at the University of
Chicago and many times lectured about the separation of powers.
Article I is the legislative body of the government, this Congress,
comprised of a House and a Senate. Article II is the executive branch,
the President and the people that he gets to command. Article III are
the courts.
The separation of powers that was defined by our Founding Fathers,
this was not three equal or coequal branches of government--not
designed to be, Mr. Speaker; instead, the legislative branch was
designed to be a preeminent branch of this government, article I, the
branch closest to the people, most responsive to the people, and most
accountable to the people.
Of the legislative branch, of the article I, the two bodies of the
Senate and the House, it is the House of Representatives that is
established to be the quick reaction force. Up for election every 2
years, so that if the people are dissatisfied with their
Representatives in the United States Congress and the policies that we
bring forth, then the people have an opportunity to change out those
seats in this House of Representatives, all 435 of them, within each 2
years, we are all up for election or reelection.
If the people decided they wanted to throw out all 435 of us, they
had their chance just about a month ago today, and if they decide 2
years from now, short a month, that they want to throw out everybody in
the House of Representatives, that is what they do. Our Founding
Fathers wanted that restraint on this House.
[[Page H8665]]
They wanted this House to have the most control. They wanted the
House of Representatives to be where most ideas originated--not all of
them, most of them. They wanted us to be the place where we fought out
these ideas, and the genius of it is this: each of us represents
750,000 or so people here; each of us in the House of Representatives
represents about that many people.
Out there in America, 316 or so million Americans, all of the good
ideas that this government needs to consider are out there in the
hearts and minds of our people.
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And our job in this constitutional Republic is, go home, listen to
the people whom you have the honor and the privilege to represent,
listen to them, exchange ideas with them because we are not charged to
be devoid of ideas and simply carrying their ideas here. We are charged
in this Republic with having a responsibility to get informed, be
informed, stay informed, do this full time, so that we are giving all
of our heads, all of our hearts and all that we can to this job that we
have.
We owe our constituents our best effort and our best judgment, and
that includes go home and listen to them. Gather the best ideas that
can come out of our districts. Bring them here. Each one of these seats
in this place should have within it, within the mind and within the
records and within the staff of each one of us and our staff, we should
have the best ideas that come from our district. They should be
incorporated with the best ideas that we can generate.
We should bring those ideas into this idea marketplace and test them;
and while we are doing that, we are evaluating the best ideas that come
from the other 434 Members of Congress that come here with the best
ideas that they can gather. And throughout that all, with that
competition of ideas, the competition of debate, the regular order that
we ought to structure here and keep, to the extent that it is possible,
then those ideas get written into bills and those bills need to go
before subcommittees for hearings, and then they need to go before the
subcommittee and the full committee for markup so that the people in
the committee that presumably have the most expertise on the topic have
an opportunity to perfect that legislation.
Then out of committee it needs to come to the floor where the Rules
Committee should be allowing the maximum amount of input from the
Members. There is not one single Member of this House of
Representatives that has the market cornered on all the good ideas; and
there is not one single Member here that represents enough more people
within their district that they ought to have more leverage than
anybody else.
There has to be a leadership structure, that is true, but that
doesn't mean that there is only one or two or three places where the
ideas can be approved. It needs to be the best ideas that can come from
the people of the United States of America.
That is the structure in our constitutional Republic, and we should
have the closest thing to regular order that we can maintain. If it
means we work longer, if it means we work harder, we should do that.
And we should send our best ideas over across the rotunda to the
Senate. There in the Senate, they can generate some ideas, too, and
bring those ideas from the States. But they are only up for election
once every 6 years, which means, Mr. Speaker, that they have a little
bit different attitude about what they can vote for, what they are
willing to support, and where the leverage might be over there.
But in the end, this is about bringing the best ideas that exist in
America, process them through this competition of ideas in this great
debate forum that we have, and let those best ideas emerge to the top.
Mr. Speaker, sitting here in this place, we have a President that
thinks that he does all of that. We have a President who thinks that,
even though he lectured on the Constitution and the separation of
powers and understands that all legislative power and authority exists
in the Congress, not in the President of the United States. It exists
in the Congress of the United States.
When you look at our Founding Fathers, they had a habit of putting
things down in priority order. One of those examples that I would place
into the Record here, Mr. Speaker, is in the Declaration of
Independence. That is not an independent document from the
Constitution. The Declaration is the promise; the Constitution is the
fulfillment of the promise that is in the Declaration: life, liberty,
pursuit of happiness, in that order. They didn't say, pursuit of
happiness, liberty, then life. They didn't say, liberty, pursuit of
happiness, then life. It is life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. That
is because they are prioritized rights.
Life is the paramount right. It takes precedence over any other
right. The second that was established in the Declaration was liberty,
God-given liberty. Our Founding Fathers are the ones that articulated
that, put it on the parchment, and pledged their lives, their fortune,
and their sacred honor to that cause.
Pursuit of happiness, by the way, is not just envisioned by our
Founding Fathers to be what I think some people think it is, like this
endless tailgate party in this pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of
happiness is the development of the whole human being. Some pronounce
the Greek term for that is ``eudemonia.'' That means the development of
the whole human being--physically, mentally, spiritually,
intellectually, knowledge-based, all of those things put together--as
someone who, enjoying the rights of life and liberty, is contributing
back to that society and civilization and to the government of, by, and
for the people. That is what pursuit of happiness is.
But it still is trumped by liberty, and liberty is trumped by life.
No one in the exercise of their liberty can take someone else's life,
and no one in the exercise of their pursuit of happiness can take away
someone else's liberty or life. That is the order; that is the
priority.
So, with that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I would point out that our
Founding Fathers envisioned--and they wrote it in the Constitution, to
put it bluntly--article I. They didn't start out with article II or
article III. If they declared article I to be the executive branch of
government, one might be able to read into this that the President has
a little more power than he does. They wanted to make sure the people
had the power.
So they wrote in article I, the very first sentence, article I,
section 1:
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a
Senate and a House of Representatives.
That is an irrefutable first truth in the Constitution of the United
States. That is what Barack Obama taught at the University of Chicago.
That is the foundation of article I.
The President of the United States, he is the embodiment at the top
of the executive branch of government. And it says in the beginning of
article II:
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the
term of 4 years, and, together with the vice president,
chosen for that same term, be elected, as follows.
It doesn't actually say that the President, in the first sentence,
has this massive power. In fact, nowhere in article II does it say that
the President has this massive power to legislate because it is
exclusively reserved for the Congress of the United States in the very
first sentence, article I, section 1.
So this little lecture that I have provided here, Mr. Speaker--and I
know you know all of this to be fact--it is pretty similar to the
lectures I imagine the President delivered at the University of
Chicago, and it reflects the expressions that he has made of his
constitutional understanding at least 22 times into the public record
when he said: I don't have the authority to grant amnesty.
Now, I am summarizing this, of course. He wouldn't use that word
himself.
He said he didn't have the authority on March 28, 2011, at the high
school here in Washington, D.C. He said: I know you want me to pass the
DREAM Act and establish it, but you are studying. You are smart
students. You are studying the Constitution. You know that I don't have
the authority to do that. The Congress writes the laws. The legislature
writes the laws. I am head of the executive branch as President. My job
is to enforce the laws, and the
[[Page H8666]]
judicial branch of government's job is to interpret the laws.
That is a pretty concise description of what this Constitution does,
that statement, and at least 21 other statements by the President of
the United States, in his declaration--his declaration--that he didn't
have the authority to legislate.
Then, lo and behold, the President of the United States had a change
of heart. He stopped saying he didn't have the authority for several
months, didn't seem so curious because he was floating trial balloons
about advancing an executive amnesty. Those trial balloons floated out
June, July, August, September, October. He announced at some point--or
leaked it out--that he wouldn't commit his executive amnesty until
after the election for fear there would be consequences for such a
thing, and so he held back.
Then a couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday night, he gave an address
at 8 on a Thursday night to a national audience that more or less laid
out his executive amnesty, which as many times has been characterized
as ``unconstitutional.''
The President then decided he could write immigration law and he
could waive the application of the law and the enforcement of the law
for vast classes and groups of people that he defined in his executive
edict. That number of people may be 5 million. We know historically
whenever there has been an amnesty, there has been a massive amount of
fraud and a significant amount of underestimation of the real numbers,
whether it is 5 million or it is a multiplier of 5 million. I don't
think anybody thinks it is going to end up being less than 5 million
people.
Now we have a bunch of people that came into America that many of
whom committed the crime of illegal border crossing. There are some who
overstayed their visas, and they are not technically criminals. They
have committed a serious misdemeanor overstaying their visa. In both
cases, the law removes them from the United States. That is what the
law is.
But the President has decided that he can create these classes of
people, exempt them from the law, reward them with a permission slip to
stay in the United States and a work permit. Some of it is going to
turn into green cards.
So this has been a massive effort to usurp the authority of the
United States Congress to pass laws. And for the President to give his
oath of office and take that oath of office to take care that the laws
be faithfully executed--preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution
of the United States, so help him God--he is obligated to take care
that the laws are faithfully executed. Instead, he has taken the
Constitution--figuratively speaking--separated out article I of the
Constitution, torn it out, and said: I do the law, too. Folded it, put
it in his shirt pocket, and walked away from the podium in the East
Room that night.
Now here we are. We are a Nation thrown into a constitutional crisis,
a Nation that was struggling to restore the respect for the rule of law
as far back as Ronald Reagan's 1986 Amnesty Act. I remember what that
was like. I remember what I thought. I am not Monday morning
quarterbacking that. I believe Ronald Reagan would stand the principle
and veto the '86 Amnesty Act, because anything less meant that there
was an implicit promise that there would be another amnesty, another
amnesty, and another amnesty; and when you reward lawbreakers, you get
more lawbreakers.
I have been working since '86 to restore the respect for the rule of
law, and I have watched it be eroded since, one might say by each
succeeding President, Mr. Speaker, but no one has eroded the respect
for the rule of law from the White House nearly to the extent as this
President.
So as I see what is happening in America, I have been wanting to,
working here in this Congress, to restore the pillars of American
exceptionalism, those pillars, many of which you find in the Bill of
Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, but just in the
first one: freedom of speech, religion, press, the right to peaceably
assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. The
Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. It goes on and on.
The Bill of Rights is replete of pillars of American exceptionalism,
any one of which, if you pulled it out, this giant shining city on a
hill that is built upon those beautiful marble pillars of American
exceptionalism, that are drilled down to bedrock, that seek this
country and its greatness and the greatness of people that are here,
you pull any one of them out, we don't become the great country that we
are today.
But the rule of law, Mr. Speaker, the rule of law, the essential
pillar of American exceptionalism, that idea that no man--meaning also
in this world, no woman either--is above the law. We get equal
protection under the law, and we are all treated equally before the
law. That rule of law is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism
without which we could not have become this great Nation, neither can
we sustain ourselves as a great Nation.
But I am watching as it is torn asunder by a willful act of an
individual that knows better. We know he knows better because he
lectured for 10 years better. And he gave us 22 speeches across the
country that told us that he knew better, and then flipped and did this
to throw this America into a constitutional crisis.
Then what are our alternatives here in the House of Representatives
and in the United States Senate? We have a majority in the Republicans
coming into the United States Senate. It will soon be nine freshman
Republicans that will arrive on the floor of the United States Senate
to take their oath of office in January of 2015, not that long from
now.
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Here in the House, we are going to end up with 247 Republicans, which
is a pretty good-sized majority here in the House of Representatives--
the largest majority we have had since sometime back in the Roaring
Twenties. That is 15 new Republicans seated in the House of
Representatives.
Some say: Well, why don't we just wait and we'll pick up better
ground to fight on. We can fight better maybe in January. So let's do a
continuing resolution. Maybe we'll just kick the whole omnibus can all
the way down the road until September 30.
But we surely can't do this. We surely can't let the President shut
the government down. So we'll say there won't be a government shutdown,
which is a promise that we're not going to defund the President's
lawless act.
Now, if we announce that we are not willing to use the tools that are
here in this Constitution in my jacket pocket, carefully given to the
House of Representatives especially, but also the Senate, that gives
the power of the purse to the Congress, in the Federalist Papers it is
very clear that our Founding Fathers intended for this Congress to have
the power of the purse because with the power of the purse comes the
authority to control everything the executive branch does, if we so
choose.
We can write language that is limiting language. We can write
language that says: Here's all the money you want, Mr. President.
You've already soared through $17 trillion in national debt--and now,
$18 trillion in national debt. We'll scoop you up a few hundred more
billion dollars. In fact, we'll scoop you trillions of dollars over
there. And you can spend whatever it is that we have agreed in the
discussions with Senator Reid and the President of the United States.
We are going to provide for money because we don't want to fight. We
don't want to fight.
Yes, we do. We have an obligation. And we have to. Money can be
compromised if money is not a principle. The Constitution of the United
States cannot be compromised; it is a principle. And we take an oath to
uphold the Constitution here, 435 of us standing in this same place
next January, again. It doesn't mean you get this caveat that says I
don't like the politics of defending the Constitution. It doesn't mean
that this is too painful for me so I am not going to do it. It doesn't
even mean I disagree with the policy so I am not going to defend the
Constitution.
What it means is you take an oath to uphold the Constitution, come
what may, without regard to political consequences, without regard to
policy implications, with complete regard to the oath to preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is our
oath. And if the President doesn't keep his, we are ever more obligated
to keep ours. That is what we
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must do. And the most reasonable tool that we have is the tool that
defunds the President's lawless executive edicts.
That is what must be done, and it must be done on appropriation bills
that are must-pass, that the President wants, which means now, given an
understanding that they continued to issue permits throughout the
government shutdown 14 months ago. That is under USCIS. They functioned
during a government shutdown, issuing DACA permits--the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals--and they continued to exercise these
nonprosecutorial discretion Morton memos. They were doing those things,
Mr. Speaker, during a government shutdown. So they declared it,
apparently, to be an essential service, or they went off on the loop of
it being fee-based.
We can write language into the next appropriation bill--and it should
be a very short CR that gets us into next year--and that language must
shut off the funding to the President's lawless act that he committed
and knew what he was doing.
We need to do it now. It is a matter of principle. When you are
called upon to keep your oath of office, you don't get to decide that
there is going to be another time, a better time. If we vote to fund
the President's lawlessness, Mr. Speaker, we don't get our virtue back
in January, February, and March of next year. We must uphold the
Constitution now.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President.
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