[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16506-16507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                  BRITISH-AMERICAN PARLIAMENTARY GROUP

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this week a delegation of British Members of 
Parliament will visit the Senate in the latest in a long line of 
biennial exchanges fostered by the British-American Parliamentary 
Group. My good and true and long-time friend, Senator Stevens, and I 
serve as co-chairs for the American delegation. These exchanges date 
back to the aftermath of World War II, when both sides recognized the 
value of maintaining the kind of close working relationship that can 
only be realized through personal interaction and camaraderie. After 
graciously hosting Senator Stevens and me in 1997, when we visited 
London and York with several other Senators, Lord Jopling later this 
week will arrive in Washington with Members from the House of Lords and 
the House of Commons. Lord Michael Jopling is a former Member of the 
House of Commons. This weekend, I am pleased that the group will be 
meeting at the famous Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West 
Virginia, to discuss defense, trade, and environmental issues of 
concern to our great nations.
  As an avid student of history, particularly Roman and Greek history, 
Persian history, English history, and American history, I remind all 
who will listen that those roots are essential in understanding the 
development of the American Constitution. In the Senate chamber, and 
while walking through the halls of our columned Capitol building, I am 
daily reminded of the unique and enduring legacy bequeathed to 
Americans by our English, Scot, Welsh, and Irish ancestors. The Minton 
tiles paving the corridors as well as the very language of debate which 
rings across the Senate floor in sonorous spoken cadences recall this 
powerful legacy. Even the physical being of the Capitol building 
itself--its white marble and sunny sandstone gleaming amid graceful 
stands of stately trees and curving drives--owes a nod of thanks to 
informal and inviting landscaping design pioneered in Britain.
  And, less visible but more pervasive, the strong skeleton of 
government and law in the United States carries the indelible genetic 
markers of British origin--its DNA shaped by centuries of struggle 
between monarchs and parliaments before mutating into a new form under 
the guidance of the British citizens that became our Founding Fathers. 
Though certainly not an exact clone, like Dolly the sheep, the American 
bicameral legislature and our legal system based upon British Common 
Law bear witness to this sturdy inheritance.
  From the defining moment at Runnymede in 1215, when the English 
barons forced King John to give his assent to

[[Page 16507]]

a charter of liberties, the belief in fundamental written guarantees of 
rights and privileges has become a treasured inheritance on both sides 
of the Atlantic. Unknown or unpracticed in many parts of the world, the 
concept of individual rights guaranteed by law is a jewel in the crown 
of British history. Other documents written since the Magna Carta, and 
comprising the unwritten English Constitution, including the Petition 
of Right, 1628, and the English Bill of Rights, 1689, have also found 
new life on distant shores in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. 
And the concepts of ``habeas corpus,'' presentment and trial juries, 
``just compensation,'' and the right against self-incrimination, all 
pillars of American jurisprudence, migrated to the United States from 
England and English law.
  To my mind, however, one of the greatest legacies bestowed upon the 
United States by these generations of British lawmakers is in 
establishing control over the power of the purse in elected officials 
of the people, rather than in the executive. Seven hundred and two 
years ago, in 1297, Edward I reluctantly agreed to the ``Confirmation 
of the Charters,'' promising not to levy taxes without the common 
consent of the realm.
  Parliament took on its original form during the reign of Edward I, 
who has been called the father of Parliament. Parliament divided into 
the House of Commons and the House of Lords along about 1339, 1341-42, 
during the reign of Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377, a total 
of 50 years.
  Paired with this spending authority came the right to audit how funds 
had been expended. These powers of appropriation and audit, the 
fraternal twins of legislative might, shaped and tested by British 
experience, were united by the American Founding Fathers in a single 
paragraph of article I, section 9, of the U.S. Constitution. It states 
that, ``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence 
of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of 
the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published 
from time to time.'' And so it is this sentence, together with the very 
first section of article 1, which invests in the Senate and the House 
of Representatives their broad scope to check the power of the Chief 
Executive and defend the interests of their various constituencies.
  For this, as in so many things, I give thanks to my English 
forbearers, who shed their blood at the point of the sword in wresting 
from tyrannical monarchs the control of the power over the purse. That 
struggle lasted for hundreds of years, until finally, in 1689, under 
the English Bill of Rights, it was guaranteed. As for William of Orange 
and Mary, who assumed the joint rule over the British people, 
Parliament required that they accede to and agree to the Declaration of 
Rights, which had been drawn up in February of 1689. Once they agreed, 
then they were crowned joint monarchs. In December of that year, the 
English Declaration of Rights was put into statute form and designated 
the English Bill of Rights.
  This is a pearl beyond price, and one which I hope to pass down 
unblemished to my descendants. Never again, after that English Bill of 
Rights had been put into statute form, would Kings levy taxes--excise 
or other taxes--upon the British people without the approval, the 
assent and consent of Parliament. I have fought with every ounce of 
energy that I could muster against such mutations of the legacy passed 
down to this country through a thousand years of blood and English 
history as the constitutional amendment to balance the budget and the 
line-item veto.
  Our common past has built a history of cooperation between the 
British and the American people that has always prevailed over our 
differences. In this century, our sons, brothers, and fathers have 
stood shoulder to shoulder against common enemies from the 
battlegrounds of world wars to conflicts in the Persian Gulf and in the 
Balkans. Together, we have stood against the Soviet bear. We have stood 
fast through changes of governments and shifts in political power. 
While not always smooth, just as relations between family members are 
not always smooth, Anglo-American relations have weathered bigger 
storms than Bosnia, Kosovo, NATO expansion, and differences in how to 
approach the problem of global climate change.
  Our blood ties are stronger than the vast and deep ocean of waters 
that are between us. And those unbreakable bonds will see us through to 
the next century and beyond, because we are brothers made so through 
the parenthood of historical experience. Exchanges like those fostered 
by the British-American Parliamentary Group are the nectar, the 
ambrosia, that sweetens and sustains the close ties between our 
nations. I look forward to this week's opportunity to join again at the 
flower of good fellowship.
  I second the words of Winston Churchill, who said in a speech in the 
House of Commons on August 20, 1940:

       The British Empire and the United States will have to be 
     somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for the 
     mutual and general advantage. For my own part looking out 
     upon the future, I do not view the process with any 
     misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop 
     it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it 
     roll, let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, 
     benignant, to broader lands and better days.

  Senator Stevens, our other colleagues who have agreed to join with us 
at the Greenbrier, and my wife Erma and I welcome Lord and Lady 
Jopling. My wife and I were in England--in York, as a matter of fact--
in August of the year before last, on the day that Princess Diana was 
killed, and on which we returned to the United States after meeting 
with the British-U.S. Parliamentary Group. I had the pleasure of 
chairing the group when we Democrats were in control of the Senate. On 
that occasion, I took the members of the British group down to the 
Greenbrier, in Greenbrier County at White Sulphur Springs. We enjoyed 
it. We all look forward to going there again.
  Again, I welcome Lord and Lady Jopling, and the British members of 
this year's exchange.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. As I understand it, we are in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. THOMAS. I can speak for approximately 6 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

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