[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 46 (Wednesday, March 23, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1574-H1579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WHEN THE LAW DOES NOT FOLLOW THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. LaMalfa).


                   The Life and Legacy of Isaac Lowe

  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for yielding to me so I may pay tribute to a great, stellar 
woman from northern California. This can't be done in a 1-minute 
speech, so a little extra time is very, very fitting in recognition of 
her work and her life.
  In rising today, I join with many northstate residents in honoring 
the life and legacy of Isaac Lowe, an incredible woman and a prominent 
civil rights leader, who passed away just a few weeks ago in Redding, 
California.
  She was born in 1921 in Wharton, Texas. Isaac was the second youngest 
of nine children, learning early the importance of hard work. She 
attended Tillotson Business College in Austin, Texas, and Prairie View 
A&M in Prairie View. It was during a visit to check up on a sick friend 
in California when she met her future husband, Vernon Lowe, whom she 
married soon after and started her family in Redding, California.
  Being an African American woman in the 1940s, unfortunately, racism 
was no stranger to Isaac. Despite holding a business degree, she was 
denied jobs because employers chose to judge her skin color rather than 
her impressive credentials. Isaac did not give up. She started a 
catering business in Redding, and she eventually became the first Black 
woman to be hired by the County of Shasta, working in social services 
for 17 years and helping others. However, Isaac's most noble work was 
through her plight to advance racial equality in her own neighborhood.
  Upon first moving to Redding, all but one of the Black families lived 
on the same street and were segregated from the community. This was a 
status quo that she didn't accept. Isaac joined her husband in founding 
the Redding chapter of the NAACP and began her 65-year journey of 
advocating for civil rights and worked very hard in order to hold onto 
that charter of the NAACP when times got a little leaner back in the 
seventies. She lobbied city and county lawmakers for safe and 
affordable housing for Black families. She worked with local school 
officials for the equal treatment of Black children in the community's 
mainly White schools. She fought for fairness and justice under the law 
for all citizens in the judicial system. She raised funds and 
successfully sought approval from city hall for the construction of the 
only Martin Luther King, Jr., community center between Sacramento and 
Oregon at that time.
  It was her compassionate advocacy and her resiliency that helped 
change Shasta County for the better. Some of her most notable 
accomplishments included being the first Black woman to serve on Shasta 
County's grand jury, where she served as a founding member of the 
Shasta County Citizens Against Racism and was awarded the Redding 
Citizen of the Year in 1992. Her proudest moment was in getting the 
Redding City Council members to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a 
holiday.
  Her legacy speaks volumes of the person she was and of the impact she 
had on so many lives. One of the anecdotes I know about her informally 
is that she was fairly commonly referred to as the ``Rosa Parks of 
Redding, California.'' She was a deeply caring friend, a loving wife 
and mother, and a selfless advocate.
  I had the chance to meet Isaac personally on different occasions--
some positive and one, actually, a very negative occasion, but it was 
made positive by how the community responded to a very ugly racial 
incident that took place against a Black family in their home. Many of 
us in the community joined together in a march in solidarity, 
protesting, that we were not going to tolerate this in our community in 
northern California. Isaac was there, being strong but also being that 
smiling, positive voice. You could see her strength. You could also see 
the light shining from within her as she advocated for what was right 
for everybody, really, at the end of the day.
  If we had more people like her and if we had more harmony instead of 
the divisiveness that we see so badly affecting this country today, we 
would be much better off. Northern California has lost a gem, but her 
legacy will live on, and we all recognize that. I am honored to be able 
to note that here today on the U.S. House floor and to properly show 
that. Her legacy even lives on in the papers she published and that are 
right over here in the Library of Congress, which note some of her work 
in the past for the NAACP. Indeed, it is a rich legacy that reaches all 
the way to Washington, D.C.
  I appreciate my colleague from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for allowing me to 
make this special tribute to Isaac Lowe today.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from California (Mr. LaMalfa). I did 
not realize I should have been joining in that tribute with the 
gentleman. Her being born in Wharton, Texas, and going to college in 
Texas, we share her as a real gem that the Lord provided to both of us. 
I thank the gentleman for sharing that with us.
  Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of being allowed to attend oral 
arguments at the Supreme Court, and I appreciate their staff and their 
accomodation. Not everybody over there recognizes that there are three 
independent, coequal branches of government the way the Founders 
intended, but I am extremely grateful for those who do, and we afford 
the mutual respect between us. That is a good thing.
  So, to the clerk of the Court and to Perry and others, I thank you 
for your accomodation.
  I am a member of the Supreme Court Bar, which allows attorneys, as 
far as seating, to come sit in front of the bar, on the side of the bar 
with the litigants, and to get a real ringside seat--actually, inside 
the ring.
  The case today was, actually, a consolidation of a number of cases. 
Probably most well-known--probably that should be most well-known--was 
the Little Sisters of the Poor. We had representatives from East Texas 
Baptist University in my district in Marshall, Texas. It is just a 
super school. They are a religious school, and they are not ashamed, 
because they are East Texas Baptist University, to teach what religious 
convictions inform them are the right things to do. They follow the 
law. The problem is when the law does not follow the Constitution, and 
that is what has gotten us into the problem that was faced today and is 
being faced at the Supreme Court.
  It is amazing. I was telling a group here just recently that, in east 
Texas, we call it ``common sense,'' but when I get to Washington, we 
usually just

[[Page H1575]]

have to call it ``sense'' because it is not common at all. I found that 
to be the case at the Supreme Court during oral arguments. I do have 
great sympathy for all of the eight remaining Justices in this regard.

                              {time}  1200

  Once the Supreme Court issues a ruling that clearly violates the 
Constitution, for all who truly have eyes and truly have ears to hear 
not clouded by secular humanism, but informed by the Constitution's 
words itself, then they see that, when a court rules against the 
Constitution, violating the Constitution by its very ruling, it creates 
a terribly difficult situation for itself.
  Because once the bold, visible lines that are spelled out in the 
Constitution are violated and erased, the Court is charged with an 
ongoing impossible task of trying to find a place to redraw those 
lines.
  Now, it is unfortunate that some of the Justices--in fact, four of 
them--kept trying to draw a line in a manner that was not before the 
Court. They showed themselves to be not necessarily very able jurists 
who loved justice, but, in fact, very experienced politicians.
  Because politicians know, if you are wrong on an issue and somebody 
brings up the issue about which you are wrong, the thing to do is 
change the subject and make it about something that you are not wrong 
about.
  You point to something that is a very difficult question and say that 
that is a very difficult question and, as good magicians do, divert the 
attention away from the wrong that you have already done and that you 
are about to complicate.
  Mr. Speaker, the wrong about which I speak was the violation by 
Congress coupled with the violation by the Supreme Court itself.
  For the first time in our Nation's history, having the United States 
Federal Government with all its powers, its guns, its ability to take 
people's homes--well, that is the IRS. Most folks can't take homes.
  But to just wreak havoc on the well-being of a family, of a business, 
the Federal Government says for the first time: You have to purchase a 
product. It is required.
  There is nothing in the Constitution that either allows or encourages 
the United States Government to order all American citizens to buy a 
product.
  As we went through discussion on ObamaCare back during 2009 until it 
passed in 2010, at first, the President and his minions were saying 
that, well, clearly this is not a tax. It was a mandate.
  It says: You must buy a product and, if you don't comply with our 
Federal order to buy this product, this health insurance--and it has to 
be what we say health insurance is, not some idea you have--we will 
dictate what the health insurance is, and you have to provide it. If 
you don't, it is not a tax.
  There is a penalty for violating the law, the mandatory obligation 
that we have imposed on every American. Well, nothing allows that and 
many things prohibit it.
  Over the years, Members of Congress and even the Supreme Court and 
Presidents have used the Commerce Clause, that we have the right to 
control interstate commerce, as the basis for which to get involved in 
matters of commerce that lie within a State.
  In this case, Chief Justice Roberts in this part of the opinion very 
correctly states that, if you allow the Federal Government to say we 
have jurisdiction to mandate people buy health insurance and not just 
any health insurance. It has to have the things in it that we dictate, 
then there is no place you could ever draw a line and say the Commerce 
Clause does not allow for this and ultimately decided that, under the 
Commerce Clause, ObamaCare was unconstitutional.
  Simply citing the fact that everybody, at some point, seeks health 
care--and most people have some form of health insurance at some 
point--that does not give the Federal Government the right to come in 
and take over and even dictate the purchase of a product.
  We had some in this room and at the other end of this building in the 
Senate who furthered the argument that this is old news, that the 
Government has been able to do this for many years. It is called car 
insurance or automobile insurance. Governments have been requiring 
insurance and penalizing if you didn't buy insurance for years. This is 
not a new concept.
  The trouble is that was not an appropriate comparison at all. For one 
thing, that is activity within the State. It was not the Federal 
Government that required an insurance policy. And there was no mandate 
that everyone within a State had to have that car insurance.
  Courts have long held that driving on a highway built by the State or 
Federal Government or county is a privilege. You do not have a 
constitutional right to drive a car on a government road. But if you 
choose to drive a car, a vehicle, on a government road, in that case, 
then you must have insurance.
  The difference is driving on a road is a privilege. In the case of 
ObamaCare, the Federal Government said just breathing, walking around 
living or even lying prostrate in your bed, even if you are confined to 
your bed--it doesn't matter--just being a living person we will say 
under our Constitution is a privilege that the government giveth and 
the government taketh away.
  Therefore, we are saying that, if you are going to exist, breathe, 
live, you must have health insurance, and not just any health 
insurance. It has to have the provisions we say and those will not 
necessarily include the things you need in your life.
  We, as the omniscient, ubiquitous government--of course, it may be 
more ubiquitous than we know--we have a right to tell you what is good 
for you and what isn't. Once the government can tell you what you have 
to have or have not in the way of health care, they have the right to 
control your life.
  So it was interesting, for one thing, that, in this case, the 
government had conceded that these were sincerely, deeply held 
religious beliefs of all the plaintiffs. So that was not an issue.
  It was not an issue like some people who were trying to dodge the 
draft, except for religious purposes when sometimes it was and 
sometimes it was not. It was conceded in this case all of the deeply 
held religious beliefs were very sincere by the litigants.
  I heard something I don't know that I have heard before in a Supreme 
Court argument when Justice Sotomayor made a statement of fact about 
the case.
  One of the litigants who may not have been politically astute, but, 
apparently, accurate, said that, factually, Justice Sotomayor, that is 
just not the case. That is just not true here.
  Where four of the Justices showed incredible aptitude for being 
politicians and not Justices, they diverted attention--as I said, good 
magicians do this. Good politicians do this.
  They diverted attention away from the real problem and diverted away 
from the actual question before the Court and kept digging and pointing 
to a question that was not before the Court.
  That point was that the four Justices kept wanting to talk about 
objections to objecting on the basis of religious beliefs.
  They kept wanting to talk about the difficulty in drawing lines, 
that: ``Gee, what do we do if the plaintiffs or the defendants''--the 
litigants in the particular case--subjects would probably be more 
accurate under ObamaCare--the subjects of the United States--it used to 
be U.S. citizens--``are not objecting to objecting on the basis of 
religious beliefs?''

  That has come up in cases before where someone would say: ``I believe 
my religious belief is so personal. You should not make me object on 
the basis of religious beliefs because then I would have to reveal what 
my religious beliefs are and that is none of your business. So we 
object to objecting.''
  So the four most liberal Justices kept wanting to talk about: ``But 
where do we draw the line in this issue if there is an objection to 
objecting on the basis of religious grounds?''
  The able attorneys for the American subjects to the fast-growing 
monarchy here in the United States kept trying to bring them back to 
what was before the Court: ``Justices, none of these clients, none of 
the litigants, object to objecting on religious grounds. They have no 
problem with objecting on religious grounds. They have objected on

[[Page H1576]]

religious grounds. They filed objections both administratively and in 
court when they filed for injunction. They have had no problem 
objecting to objecting on the basis of religious beliefs. So that is 
not really an issue.''
  Once again, when Justices are in the wrong, they don't want to talk 
about the issue before the Court. They want to talk about the issue 
that is not before the Court. Let's talk about how many angels you 
might could get on the head of a needle. Let's talk about anything but 
the elephant in the room.
  The real elephant in the room and the reason for which I have 
sympathy for all eight Justices is that, once they violated the 
Constitution by saying ObamaCare was constitutional, they created so 
many scenarios that are going to be nightmares for the Court to try to 
figure out where we stop the flood as it overwhelms the rights of 
Americans.
  It is just a massive--like that 1950s movie or maybe it was early 
'60s--``The Blob.'' You just couldn't stop it. It would go out one 
place and come out another.
  And that is the problem when the Supreme Court violates the 
Constitution in the case of ObamaCare, saying: You can dictate to 
American citizens. You can make them American subjects to this all-
powerful, dictatorial Federal Government. You can tell them what to 
buy. You can punish them for not buying it.
  And, of course, we know that--although Chief Justice Roberts was 
exactly right and on point when he said: Gee, if you try to use the 
Commerce Clause, jurisdiction over interstate commerce, to justify the 
takeover of health care and a mandate to buy something the Federal 
Government says you have to buy, then there is no limit ever that can 
be drawn on the Commerce Clause.

                              {time}  1215

  So it is not constitutional under the Commerce Clause. It certainly 
appeared accurate when Chief Justice Roberts went through an 
explanation of the initial issue that they had to take up on ObamaCare, 
and that was the anti-injunction statute, which basically requires 
that, before a litigant in Federal court can have standing to be before 
the court and if it involves a tax, then the litigant must be someone 
against whom the tax has already been levied and the tax has already 
been paid. Only if the tax has been levied against the litigant and the 
tax has been paid do the courts recognize standing by that litigant to 
be before the court to make argument over any complaint.
  So they had to deal with that issue because not only does a litigant 
not have standing to even stay in court if they are arguing about a tax 
and the tax has not been levied and the tax has not been paid, but the 
Federal court itself has no jurisdiction to even hear the controversy 
until the tax is levied and the tax is paid.
  So Chief Justice Roberts had the difficult problem of investigating 
and ruling on whether or not the mandate and the penalty that comes if 
you don't purchase what is required by the Federal Government--is that 
a penalty or is that a tax?
  Because if it is a tax, the law is very clear. We will have to rule 
that the plaintiffs do not have standing and their case be thrown out. 
And, similarly, we will rule that the Court does not have jurisdiction. 
The case, as it is said in court, is not ripe for litigation. So it 
will have to be thrown out.
  If the court found that the penalty imposed by the Federal Government 
for not being a loyal American subject and buying a product that the 
monarchy or the growing dictatorship here says you have to buy--if it 
is a penalty, then you can come to court. We do have jurisdiction, and 
you do have standing.
  So Chief Justice Roberts went through and ably explained how Congress 
called it a penalty. At that time, of course, the Democrats were in the 
majority here in the House as well as the Senate. The Democratic 
leadership, the Democratic supporters in favor of ObamaCare, had made 
it clear this is a penalty.
  Chief Justice Roberts cited that, that Congress should know better 
than anyone else whether this is a penalty or it is a tax. Because if 
it is a penalty, again, the litigant can be here and have standing. We 
have got jurisdiction. But if it is a tax, we have to throw it out. We 
can't hear the case, not now.
  He said Congress should know better than anyone. They decided it was 
a penalty. Not only that, but it really does appear to be a penalty 
because ObamaCare says: You have to buy insurance and you have to buy a 
product we say is okay. You can't buy what you want. You have to buy 
what we say you must buy. And if you don't do that, we will impose a 
financial penalty on you.
  I am hearing more and more young people who are really perplexed: 
Yes. The government is giving me a subsidy to help me pay for my 
insurance, but my insurance has 5-, 6-, 7-, $8,000 of a threshold that 
I have to meet before it ever helps me with a dime of insurance help. 
So am I better off getting the government subsidy, paying all this 
money that is really making my life miserable, or should I go ahead and 
pay the new income tax that I have added on to me for not having 
insurance as is dictated?
  I think Chief Justice Roberts came to a proper conclusion. This truly 
is a penalty. It is not a tax because it is only paid if you violate 
the mandate that the Federal Government dictated. So, clearly, it is a 
penalty.
  So there at page 1415 of the opinion, Chief Justice Roberts 
concludes: Okay. Congress says it is a penalty. It obviously is a 
penalty. If you don't want to pay the penalty, then buy the insurance. 
You won't have the penalty. It is clearly a penalty. Since it is a 
penalty, the Anti-Injunction Act does not apply. Therefore, the 
plaintiffs do have standing, and not only do they have standing, but 
this court has jurisdiction. Now, because it is a penalty and not a 
tax, we have jurisdiction. So now we will proceed to consider the 
primary cause before us, whether or not the Federal Government can 
mandate for the first time in history that all of the American people 
buy a product that it dictates.
  Then he went through and determined, if you say the Commerce Clause 
justifies Federal jurisdiction here, then the Commerce Clause has no 
limits, has no meaning. And we choose to find that the Commerce Clause 
has meaning. Therefore, this is unconstitutional under the Commerce 
Clause.
  But, then again, about 40 pages after he says it is not a tax, it is 
a penalty, Chief Justice Roberts plays the mental gymnastics of 
arriving at saying: You know what. It turns out this really is not a 
penalty. It is a tax. And since it is a tax, a majority of us will find 
that it is constitutional. And so the Federal Government can impose a 
mandate requiring that all American citizens be loyal subjects, subject 
to the dictatorship here in Washington, buy whatever product we tell 
them to buy. And all of that is because the Supreme Court rewrote the 
law and called it a tax.
  That is why the Supreme Court is struggling the way it is today. 
Because when you create an abomination, you violate the Constitution to 
the extent, you violate your conscience the way it was before it got so 
clouded with politics. You violate the Constitution and then you create 
the kind of mess that is before the Supreme Court today.
  It is incredible to sit and listen to the Supreme Court struggling 
over this issue of just how far we can go to violate someone's 
religious beliefs. I didn't hear any one of the Justices refer to the 
First Amendment, that the government will establish no religion and not 
violate--or not prohibit the free exercise thereof.
  My friend, Keith Rothfus, a fellow Member of Congress, was sitting 
beside me. He got sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court bar today. 
Keith Rothfus was pointing out that, in one of the prior Supreme Court 
decisions back in the 1960s, they actually had a footnote where they 
listed a lot of the religions that they found currently in the United 
States. It was a fairly full list.
  But one of the religions in the United States recognized by the 
Supreme Court in the early 1960s was secular humanism. As Keith Rothfus 
and I agreed, we have now come to the point where we are violating the 
First Amendment of the Constitution.
  And not only are we violating the restraint against the Federal 
Government prohibiting the free exercise of religion, as it is doing 
for East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Little 
Sisters of the Poor,

[[Page H1577]]

so many organizations that are religious in nature, but they have 
violated the part that said we will have no establishment of religion.
  The Founders were thinking specifically about the Church of England 
and how the King didn't like the way the Vatican was ruling. And so he 
just created his own church, the Church of England. He said: Everybody 
has got to participate in my church now.
  They didn't want that to ever happen where the government of the land 
could dictate the religion that people had to practice. Yet, that is 
what the Supreme Court has now done because it has now recognized 
secular humanism--not just recognized, but established secular 
humanism--as the State-sponsored religion in America.

  With the ruling last summer, the Supreme Court, in effect, said: 
Since the 1960s, we have been limiting people's ability to use the word 
God, to pray to God, to read God's word, the Bible. We have been 
prohibiting that for 40 or so years, 50 years maybe, and we have been 
protecting what Moses said was the Word of God and what Jesus said was 
the Word of God for far too long.
  They basically established secular humanism as the official religion 
of the United States. By their pronouncement, they were saying to 
forget what Moses said God said, forget what Jesus said.
  When Jesus actually was asked about marriage and divorce, he quoted 
Moses verbatim: A man shall leave his father and mother, a woman leave 
her home. The two will become one flesh.
  Then Jesus added, not just quoting Moses as to what Moses said God 
said about marriage: And what God has joined together, let nobody take 
apart.
  The Supreme Court last summer said: The effect of the ruling is not 
only can you not talk about God publicly or pray or read the Bible, 
thank God we have speech and debate clause privileges here on this 
floor where I am actually free to even mention the word God. We pray 
every day to start our official day here in session. But the Supreme 
Court ruled, in effect: We are your God. The five of us in the majority 
of the Supreme Court are now your God. Forget what we said in our prior 
decisions about marriage. It was not mentioned in the Constitution. 
Therefore, under the 10th Amendment, it is reserved to the States and 
the people.
  Forget the fact that we have talked before about the States will 
decide what marriage is. Forget our ruling on DOMA, the Defense of 
Marriage Act, passed by Congress, where we made very clear that the 
States only have the right to decide what marriage is.
  Forget all that. Now we five majority Justices are your God. And 
forget the fact that we--at least two of us have violated the Federal 
law in order to reach this decision. Because the Federal law is very 
clear. If a judge--a Federal judge, magistrate, Justice might have 
their impartiality--his or her impartiality questioned, then they 
should disqualify--they shall disqualify themselves from sitting on the 
case.
  So we had two Justices. Not only was their opinion and their 
impartiality in question, there was actually no question that they were 
not impartial because they had both participated in same-sex wedding 
ceremonies. And Justice Ginsburg, who is a very nice lady, actually 
said--as Maureen Dowd pointed out in her article, she emphasized as she 
pronounced them married by virtue of the laws of the--and she said she 
really hammered the words--by the Constitution of the United States.

                              {time}  1230

  So, clearly, we had Justice Kagan and Justice Ginsburg perform same-
sex marriages before they were not impartial. The law required them to 
disqualify themselves.
  I have had some people say: Well, wouldn't it have disqualified any 
of the other judges if they had ever participated in a marriage between 
a man and a woman?
  The answer is very easily and clearly no, because that was the law.
  The question is: Can a government prohibit same-sex marriage?
  It was same-sex marriage that was before the court, not can a 
government prohibit marriage between a man and a woman.
  If the question had been: Can a government prohibit marriage between 
a man and a woman, then that might be a different story. But that was 
not the issue before the court. Two Justices were disqualified. They 
had made their opinion clearly known in advance.
  There were other judges who had been asked, as I understand it, to do 
weddings, but they said: No, that might create a question of my 
impartiality and would require me to disqualify myself.
  Well, their participation did certainly disqualify them. They refused 
to disqualify themselves. So two Justices, as a minimum, were 
disqualified as they participated in the majority of five.
  So when you have an unconstitutional ruling by the United States 
Supreme Court, when the Chief Justice has to commit to the mental 
gymnastics, the loop-the-loops that he has to try to do to get around 
saying the mandate to purchase a policy that carries a penalty, is a 
penalty, and then over here we know he said it is a penalty over there, 
but now we are saying it is a tax, not a penalty, they created a 
nightmare for any legitimate judge with a conscience in trying to 
decide: Now that we have blown apart any constitutional lines, where do 
we draw the lines now?
  It is rather tragic. Justice Kennedy was questioning one of the 
religious litigant's attorneys and made the statement, basically, that 
the court would find it very hard to write an opinion saying that if we 
give an exemption to a church, we then have to give it to all other 
religious institutions.
  Well, that statement deeply troubled me as well because it means that 
Justice Kennedy does not understand the constitutional prohibition in 
the First Amendment. You are not on the Supreme Court or in Congress or 
in the Presidency to ever establish a religion. And it has been 
established. It is called secular humanism, which the Supreme Court has 
recognized as a religion. That is what is being established now.
  You are also not to prohibit the free exercise of religion. When the 
Supreme Court gets to the point, as Justice Kennedy is, that we on this 
court--at least a majority--will find it very hard to say that if you 
are not a part of a church and acting as that church, then you have no 
right to practice any of your religious beliefs that five of us don't 
like, that is tragic.
  I keep coming back to that prophetic statement by Benjamin Franklin 
when he was asked after the Constitutional Convention by a dear lady: 
What did you give us?
  ``A republic, madam, if you can keep it.''
  Why would he say ``if you can keep it?''
  The reason he said that is--as he knew--the nature of government is 
to take more and more power and authority over individual rights and 
individual liberties. And in order to keep a republic, as Ben Franklin 
called it, you have to teach generation after generation that there are 
responsibilities that come with citizenship. Because if you don't live 
up to those responsibilities, you will lose the republic, madam. You 
can't keep it.
  We have done a miserable job of teaching the next generation about 
how you would keep a republic. Instead of being taught, as I was, in 
school the dangers of socialism, the dangers of communism, and that it 
always has to result in a dictatorship or a totalitarian government, 
that it requires people's rights be taken away, our Founders say that 
we have to recognize these rights are a gift from our Creator, from 
God, because if we say they are a gift of the government, then what the 
government giveth, the government can taketh away.
  We have legislators and judges who have not been properly educated on 
the manner in which you keep a republic, madam.
  It really has been heartbreaking when very smart young people ask 
sincerely: I understand socialism is supposed to be wrong, communism is 
supposed to be wrong, but it really sounds nice. Can you explain why it 
would be wrong? Because I don't get it. It sounds nice.
  As the New Testament Church started out, as the Pilgrims' Compact 
started out, you bring into the common storehouse, and then you share 
and share alike. You share from those according to their ability to 
those according to their need.
  Of course, more than one parent has explained socialism to their 
children

[[Page H1578]]

by saying: Look, you got an A. I know how hard you were working every 
night doing your homework, but your friend over here got a C. I saw her 
out partying a lot of times when you were here studying. And she is not 
maybe quite as smart as you are, so she got a C, you got an A.
  The socialist notion is that we have to give everybody a B. So we 
will make this A a B, we will make this C a B, and everybody will feel 
better for it.
  Mr. Speaker, I have shared this before, but it was such a lesson to 
me as an exchange student to the Soviet Union being out at a collective 
farm. The farmers were sitting in the shade in midmorning, when anybody 
back home in east Texas knows that--especially in July, like it was--
you start early and you try to finish early before the sun gets too 
hot. It is midmorning. This is prime time to be working before it gets 
too hot. And here are all the farmers sitting in the shade in the 
middle of their village.
  Trying to use the best Russian I could--I had 2 years, which meant I 
could converse ably with a 4-year-old--I asked: When do you work out in 
the field?
  I couldn't tell what they cultivated and didn't. It all looked brown. 
None of it looked very good. I would have expected in Texas that those 
fields would have been green, looking good, and the weeds out. You 
couldn't tell what was weeds and what wasn't.
  I said: When do you work out in the field?
  They laughed, and I thought I must not have translated that right. 
Then one of them said in Russian, basically: I make the same number of 
rubles if I am out there in the field in the sun or if I am here in the 
shade. So I am here in the shade.
  I have carried that with me all these years. That is why socialism 
can't work. It is why socialism or communism--again, bringing all into 
the common storehouse, share and sharing alike--can never work on this 
Earth, in this world. Because the only way you will ever have share and 
share alike, as they found out in the New Testament Church, the only 
way you can make it work is if you have a totalitarian government that 
says: you will do what we say. And then there goes your freedoms.
  So the only way to have the maximum amount of freedom is to have a 
self-governing republic so people can govern themselves by electing 
people that they have interviewed, they have read all about, done 
plenty of research on, and then they come forward on hiring day--
otherwise known as election day--and they vote to hire the person that 
they want for their public servant. That is the way it is supposed to 
work.

  People have not obliged themselves of the need that in order to keep 
a republic, you have to do the research on the candidates that have 
applied for your job. You have a requirement, a need, for you to 
actually come out and vote. Look, I get it. There are so many I have 
heard from that are disenfranchised voters. They say: We hear about all 
these people.
  John Fund has a great book out on the fraud that has been in so many 
of our modern elections that is not being dealt with, despite what the 
government says. It is a great book.
  People find out there is fraud. Since they didn't have to have a 
photo ID like you have to have to buy cigarettes or alcohol or get on a 
plane or anything else, you can manipulate the system, you can vote 
more than one time.
  My friend from south Texas told me about some of the people who were 
illegally in the country being approached with voter registration 
forms, saying: Fill these out. If you don't want to use your own 
address here, just use one central address. You can all use the same 
address.
  Some of them were worried about showing an ID. They will figure out 
we are illegally in this country and we are not supposed to vote. They 
were assured: No, no.
  President Obama's lawyer--Eric Holder at that time--has gotten a 
judge to rule that they can't require an ID and, therefore, all you 
have to do is fill this out. But if you don't fill this out, then 
Republicans are going to take away your welfare, they are going to take 
away your health care, and they are going to try to make you leave the 
country.
  So you have got to fill this out. And even though it is illegal, 
there is nothing wrong with doing it. You will get the voter 
registration card in the mail to the address you give them, and then 
you just go vote and that is all you have to show them.
  Thankfully, we have voter ID now in Texas. But there are so many 
people who have been disenfranchised, because they say: There is so 
much voter fraud going on. Why should I even bother? My vote doesn't 
count like somebody that votes more than once.
  We are in grave danger of losing this republic. We are not going to 
keep it much longer the way we are going. We haven't educated future 
generations to how you go about keeping a self-governing republic. Some 
have been miseducated to think socialism, which has failed every single 
time it has ever been tried--it will always fail. We haven't educated 
them about the truth of freedom and what is required to keep it.
  Justice Scalia told a group from my hometown that was here that the 
reason we are the most free Nation in history is not because we had the 
best Bill of Rights, but because the Founders didn't trust government. 
They wanted gridlock. They wanted it as difficult as possible to pass 
laws, because with the passage of every law is the risk that some 
freedom will be taken away by the Big Government.

                              {time}  1245

  The Founders knew that, and they made it hard to pass laws. That is 
not a bad thing. It is a good thing.
  But when he mentioned that the Soviet Union had a better bill of 
rights than we had, I remembered, I did a paper back in college when I 
was at Texas A&M. After I had visited the Soviet Union as an exchange 
student, I wrote a paper on their system. But I had done a paper on 
their bill of rights, their Constitution. I was shocked at the extent 
of the rights that were guaranteed to the Soviet Union citizens.
  I was also surprised to find that, in the early sixties, the Premier, 
Khrushchev, in the Soviet Union, had set up a commission, because those 
that had truly been educated on the different forms of government and 
governing know that, actually, true communism is only when there is no 
government, that it is like reaching for nirvana. You eventually reach 
the point where everybody is so sharing and so giving--taking from 
their ability, giving to the need--they are so giving that you don't 
even need a government anymore.
  So Khrushchev set up a commission basically charged with coming up 
with a plan to reach that ultimate goal where someday there will be no 
government and we will have true communism in its purest form, no 
government, everyone giving, sharing, lovingly.
  And I read that, after a couple of years of that commission trying to 
figure out, ``How are we ever going to come up with a plan that 
eventuates in having no government and everybody always sharing 
equally? How are we going to ever pull that off?'' they couldn't come 
up with a way to reach that in this world, in this life, and so 
Khrushchev disbanded the commission. There was no way to get there.
  They were right. If you are going to have communism or socialism, you 
are going to have to have a totalitarian government, whether it is an 
individual dictator or a political group like they have or used to have 
at the Kremlin. You have got to have ruling autocrats, an oligarch, 
monarch, in order to force everybody to take from those who have worked 
hard, according to their ability, and giving to those who either can't 
work or choose not to work. The only way you can maximize freedoms is 
when people in the country understand what Franklin understood: you 
have got a republic if you can keep it.
  We are not being vigilant to keep our Republic, and that is why so 
many are desperate now as they vote for a Presidential candidate.
  And even Christian friends have said, you know, I understand there is 
a time and place for a David with a slingshot, complete faith in God, 
and a clear great ability with a slingshot. I know there is a time for 
that. But right now, our freedoms have been so badly eroded, we are 
losing the government. We are having people come in and start voting 
without understanding how you preserve a republic. We are losing the 
country. We are losing the melting pot that we once were, welcoming 
people

[[Page H1579]]

from all over and coming together and being molded into one thing, not 
a hyphenated American, but an American. We are losing that.
  You see many voters standing in lines now. They didn't used to ever 
do this, stand in line for hours. You found people do that in Africa 
when they are finally afforded an opportunity to vote for the first 
time in their lives. But now, in America, some people are waiting hours 
to vote because they see that we have not been vigilant in protecting 
our Republic, and just as Franklin worried, we are about to lose it.
  We are already losing it when the government can dictate that 
individuals buy a product, when the government can say you can only 
practice your religious beliefs if you are within the confines of a 
church, but if you are an individual, like the Founders were, who held 
tightly to their religious beliefs--they talked about it as they passed 
legislation; they talked about it as they created our Constitution--the 
Supreme Court is now saying: Secular humanism is what we must have; it 
is what we demand. And since we are in charge and we are moving toward 
being socialistic, you have got to have an oligarchy, and we are it.
  Obviously, they don't say it in those words, but that is what their 
actions say, and that is why, when a Justice says: Well, this Court 
would find it very hard to write an opinion saying that we were moving 
the line from beyond a church and extending that line out to other 
religious institutions--like the Little Sisters of the Poor, these 
wonderful, superb Christian women who have given their lives doing what 
Jesus said, ministering to others, feeding His sheep, ministering to 
their physical needs, their healthcare needs--and the Supreme Court 
says: We have a lot of trouble. See, they are not actually a church. 
They are a religious institution, and we are going to have a hard time 
writing an opinion that moves the line to protect religious opinions.
  My word, shouldn't have any trouble drawing a line at individuals. 
Any individual in the United States of America who has a deeply held, 
sincerely held religious belief, it was meant to be protected, unless 
it is completely anathema to our Constitution.
  Sharia law is anathema; and to the extent that some believe they 
should replace our Constitution with their sharia law, then that is 
treason if they are here in this country. But otherwise, their 
religious belief should be recognized, and God help us if the Court 
doesn't do it right.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________