[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12814-12815]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AMERICA ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, a couple of my colleagues and I tonight are 
going to spend a little bit of time talking about our Constitution, the 
founding principles on which this country is based, and a document that 
I am concerned that many of our colleagues in this Chamber are not as 
intimately familiar with as they should be.
  I have introduced H. Res. 883 to try to address this issue. The 
acronym for the act is called the AMERICA Act, A Modest Effort to Read 
and Instill the Constitution Again, which is a bit tortured, but at 
least it gets us going in the right direction.
  This resolution would require, or would encourage, each Member of the 
House and each staffer that works for a Member of the House to read the 
Constitution once a year. We hope to be voting on this in September 
during Constitution Week. But I want to talk about it tonight.
  Our Constitution sets forth the written set of fundamental principles 
about which this U.S. Government, the United States, is to be governed. 
It establishes the three branches of the government that function here 
at the Federal level. And it is considered the supreme law of the land.

[[Page 12815]]

  It is also the world's oldest written national constitution, and it 
confers upon Members of this body and the other body certain honors and 
certain great responsibilities.
  We in Congress write laws constantly to implement those fundamental 
principles, and every once in a while we propose amendments to change 
those fundamental principles. I, therefore, think it is important that 
each one of us be intimately familiar with what is in the Constitution. 
It is a relatively short document, about 2,500 words, and I would not 
consider it an onerous task for my colleagues and I to at least once a 
year read that Constitution.
  Before I came to Congress, I practiced as a CPA, Certified Public 
Accountant, and I still maintain that license. I am required as part of 
the licensing process of the State to participate in 40 hours of 
continuing professional education each year. I just finished that up 
this week for my license renewal. And I think that most professions 
have that.
  I think that it is a modest step toward a continuing education 
process or program for Members of Congress, that being required or 
being encouraged, excuse me, to read the Constitution once a year would 
be a good thing to do. So this resolution, which I am hoping to gather 
support for, because I am curious as to who would push back or what the 
arguments would be from our colleagues as to why we shouldn't know what 
is in the Constitution, why we shouldn't be familiar with what is in 
the Constitution, why that is in the best interest of the 651,000 
people that they represent here in this body.
  So I would encourage other Members to sign on to this legislation 
that would encourage each one of us and our staffers, the senior 
staffers and others, to read the Constitution once a year and help us 
understand the differences between the way this government looks today 
versus what that Constitution requires.

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