[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 10155-10162]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE 10TH AMENDMENT TASK FORCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy of Connecticut). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Utah 
(Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page 10156]]

  I appreciate the opportunity to be here and for talking especially 
about the 10th Amendment and about some of the efforts that Members of 
this House are making in a way to try and emphasize the significance 
and the importance of that particular amendment to the Constitution.
  You know, Mr. Speaker, for the people who are allowed to work in this 
Chamber or for those who come in to visit, there are all sorts of 
historical references that they can see.
  Up around the top of the wall over here, there are the cameos of the 
great icons of the world, of the great lawgivers of the world. Moses is 
the greatest of all lawgivers. He is the only one who has a full face, 
and he is looking directly at the Speaker. Everyone else has a side 
view going around here.
  And there are only two Americans in this pantheon of great lawgivers 
in the history of the world, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, who are 
on either side of the Speaker's rostrum, with some great language from 
Webster, telling us to use our resources to develop this country, which 
is in between the two.
  I always thought it was somewhat ironic that Jefferson and Mason were 
the two great lawgivers whom we have from the United States in this 
Chamber, because neither of them actually signed the Constitution. 
Jefferson was not present at the time, and George Mason was one of 
three people who spent the entire time at the Constitutional Convention 
but who, at the end of that time, still refused to affix his signature 
to the document itself.
  As I was teaching school, I insisted that every one of my kids had to 
say why Mason was one of those who did not sign the document. What was 
his rationale for it? Of course, it was because the document did not 
have a Bill of Rights.
  Now, I was always hoping that one of my students would ask what I 
still think is a more significant question, which is not why did Mason 
not sign but, rather, why did all of the other brilliant men, the 
Founding Fathers--Washington and Franklin and Madison and Hamilton and 
Wilson and Dickinson and the rest--not go along with Mason? Why did 
they not add a Bill of Rights into the base document?
  It was certainly not because these Founding Fathers did not believe 
in the idea of individual liberty. They had another method, another 
mechanism, that they thought more specific than actually listing down 
what our rights are and are not. It was the structure of government. 
Though not specifically named in the document, it becomes the essential 
element of the Constitution. And the purpose of that structure was to 
ensure that individual liberties would be maintained and that personal 
dignity and personal freedoms would be benefited and would grow in this 
country.
  So those Founding Fathers, when they built our system of government, 
divided power horizontally between the three branches of government--
executive, legislative, and judicial--with the goal and purpose of 
balancing those three so that individual liberties would be protected. 
Indeed, the problem is, if ever those three branches horizontally are 
out of balance, where one branch of government has far more ability to 
control the outcome of policy than the other, it is individual people 
who are hurt. It is their rights that are put in jeopardy.
  Now, they thought it was going to be very easy for those three 
branches of government to maintain that special balance because each 
one would have a vested interest in maintaining their particular roles 
within the system. Yet what is often forgotten, especially in public 
school classes about government, is, in addition to that horizontal 
balance of power, equally important to the Founding Fathers was a 
vertical balance of power between the national government and the 
States.
  Once again, the purpose of that balance was supposed to be to protect 
individual liberties. Again, if that balance is off kilter, then 
individuals are harmed. But the question always was: Would the Federal 
Government, the national government, be sufficient to try and maintain 
itself and to govern itself to create and maintain that balance?
  In the Federalist Papers, obviously people like Madison and Hamilton, 
who wrote those Federalist Papers, envisioned this. This was part of 
their argument to this Nation on why the Constitution should be 
adopted.
  Madison, in Federalist 45, said that the powers delegated by this 
proposed Constitution are few and defined. Those which are to remain in 
the State government are numerous and indefinite. Why? Because powers 
reserved to the States will extend to all the objects which concern the 
lives, liberties, and properties of the people.
  In Federalist 32, Hamilton said the same thing when he simply said 
that any attempt on the part of the national government to abridge any 
State power would be a violent assumption of power unwanted by any 
article or clause of the Constitution.
  Indeed, when Hamilton was arguing on whether to add a Bill of Rights 
to the Constitution itself, he simply asked the question: Why should we 
prohibit that which cannot be done? The assumption always was that 
there would be limitations on what the Federal Government can do, not 
so on the States.
  Now, the final one from Federalist 51, also by Madison, said that the 
dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on 
government, but experience has taught mankind the necessity of 
auxiliary precautions.
  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution--this concept of separating 
power horizontally between the three branches of government and 
vertically between the two levels of government--is one of those 
auxiliary precautions that the Founding Fathers realized we needed to 
have.
  Scalia, in an opinion of the Supreme Court, once said that that 
Constitution's brilliance--and I'm paraphrasing this--is to divide 
powers among different levels and different branches of government to 
resist the temptation of consolidating power as a simplistic solution 
to the emergency of the day. That's what we are talking about.
  Now, I want to emphasise very clearly that this is not the same thing 
as States' rights. States' rights, as we traditionally use that term, 
was an idea about power designed actually by Jefferson and Madison when 
they were talking about the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions and by 
Calhoun when he was talking about nullification and by Jefferson Davis 
when he was trying to fight the Civil War and by other groups when a 
lot of evils have actually been perpetuated.
  States' rights is about power. Federalism and the 10th Amendment are 
about balancing power between branches of government, between the 
national government and the State government. And the balance--not 
control--the balance is there to protect individuals.
  Because it is so easy for the Federal Government to ignore that or to 
forget it, we have formed a 10th Amendment Task Force. The goal and 
propensity of that task force is, once again, to try and reemphasize 
the significance of federalism and to disperse power from Washington to 
restore that constitutional balance of power through the liberty-
enhancing elements of federalism.
  We have five goals: One is to educate Congress and the public about 
federalism. Two is to develop proposals to disperse power to regions, 
to States, to local governments, and to private institutions, to 
families and to individuals. Three is to elevate federalism as a core 
focus of our leadership in Congress. Four is to monitor threats to 10th 
Amendment principles and to federalism. Five is to help build and 
foster a federalist constituency.
  What we are trying to do is to make people more aware of the 
importance of federalism, of the importance of the 10th Amendment and 
how it impacts their lives and also to find ways to empower States so 
they can stand up to the national government and so they can 
reestablish the balance that was always intended to be there. Because, 
once again, if that balance is out of kilter, then all of a sudden 
individuals are harmed and people are harmed. It affects their daily 
lives.
  If I could interrupt at this point, I would like to introduce one of 
the members, one of the 10 founders of this

[[Page 10157]]

10th Amendment Task Force to perhaps talk to you a little bit about the 
importance of the 10th Amendment and about the importance of federalism 
in restoring personal liberties and in making sure that government does 
not have the heavy hand that hurts and harms people, which was the 
intention of the Founding Fathers.
  So I would yield to the gentleman from Texas for as much time as he 
wishes to consume at this point.
  Mr. Neugebauer.
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, I thank the gentleman, and he brings up some 
excellent points.
  I am a proud member of the 10th Amendment Task Force because I think 
one of the things that we have to do in order to restore order in this 
country is to get back to some of the principles that our Founders 
intended. They didn't intend for government to be the answer to every 
issue in this country.
  One of the things I think back to happened a few years ago in my 
congressional district, which was not too long after we had the Katrina 
incident in New Orleans. We had a major fire in an area called Cross 
Plains, Texas. I went down there the next day, and the people in that 
region had already brought clothes to the church, so the people who had 
lost everything in the fire were able to receive clothes. For the 
people who had lost livestock, other people were going out and helping 
them. For people who had lost their homes, people in the community had 
provided temporary housing.

                              {time}  1900

  And within a very short period of time, the people in this community 
met their own needs. And I got an interesting phone call from a member 
of the media, and that person said, well, what is the government doing 
for the people in Cross Plains today? And I said, well, you know, the 
good news, we didn't need the government in Cross Plains today because 
the people responded to that.
  And I think what we've gotten away from, as the gentleman points out, 
is we've kind of turned the whole concept of what the Founders thought 
about this country upside down. They never intended for the government 
to be the solution and, in fact, the best solutions happen when you 
keep the government closest to the people.
  So the Tenth Amendment Task Force, what we're going to try to do is 
not only analyze some of the things we've already done; but as 
legislation is brought to this very floor, we're going to try to remind 
our colleagues of the principle of federalism, and is this the right 
place for this particular piece of legislation to be originated, or 
should this be left to the people, because every time the Federal 
Government puts a new law in place, individuals' liberties and freedoms 
are eroded.
  Now, one of the things that we've been talking about in this body for 
a number of months now is these record deficits in our country. It 
wasn't many years ago that this country had a budget of $100 billion, 
in fact, back in, I think, 1962. This year the President of the United 
States brought a budget to this floor that spent over $3.7 trillion. 
And by the way, it's $3.7 trillion, and we don't have $3.7 trillion. In 
fact, we're going to borrow 42 cents for every dollar we're going to 
spend.
  One of the reasons that we are running these record deficits is we 
have all of this money being funneled into the Federal system, and then 
we have all of these people up here in Washington trying to figure out 
how to spend the taxpayers' dollars, and then those monies go down to 
the States, and the States try to figure out how to distribute those 
dollars, and then the States pass them out maybe to the local 
communities. And here's what happens:
  Here is a dollar bill that the taxpayers pay in taxes. Now, what 
happens is, after Washington washes this money in this massive 
federalism, then we have the dollar that actually gets back to the 
intended purpose. It's a shrunk dollar. And one of the things we can do 
if we really want to be serious about, one, being more government 
efficient is getting the government out of some of the businesses 
they're in so that this dollar is the dollar that gets to the people, 
and not this dollar that's been washed through Washington and through 
the States, but back to the local governments.
  As I close and yield back to the gentleman, I think about the days 
when I was on the city council in Lubbock, Texas. And it was so 
discouraging to me where we would be sitting in council meetings, and 
we would be sitting with staff, and someone would have an innovative 
idea of better ways to serve our citizenry in Lubbock, Texas. But we 
would always hear from some of the staffers, well, there's a Federal 
regulation that we'll have to check on; or I'm not sure that that is in 
keeping with certain regulations that would keep Lubbock from getting 
certain kinds of funding, because it was stifling creativity in our 
local communities.
  And so, as the gentleman points out, the Founders were very sincere 
about not letting the Federal Government have very many powers, because 
they knew where the best work happens, that to keep innovation and 
liberty and freedom in place was to limit the powers of our Federal 
Government. Some way along the line we lost our way.
  And one of the reasons I joined the Tenth Amendment Task Force was to 
see if we can restore the spirit of the Constitution back to this body.
  And with that, I yield back to the gentleman and thank him for his 
time.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman from Texas for going over 
some specific examples of what this means to individuals.
  Mr. Speaker, I hate to admit this: I'm an old school teacher. I 
taught history. So when I read about what the Founding Fathers intended 
and how they tried to structure this government, I find that 
fascinating.
  I also recognize, unfortunately, for most people, when you talk about 
federalism or the Tenth Amendment, their eyes will glaze over. All they 
remember from those concepts is probably some essay they had to write 
in high school and something they didn't enjoy then and probably don't 
want to think about it now.
  But the bottom line is, the Founding Fathers actually foresaw our 
day. They recognized that the solutions we need for the crisis of this 
day that impacts real people today is the concept of federalism. That 
balance, that balance which, unfortunately, has been out of balance for 
quite some time, is that solution and, indeed, the salvation of our 
future.
  But, as you can obviously tell, I'm old, which is something that 
bothers me. However, I also recognize that the world is different. When 
I was a kid, television was a whole lot easier. There were only three 
channels and one PBS station. The dial only had 13 options on it, and, 
yeah, I had to actually get up and go to the TV and change the dial, so 
I didn't change channels that often. But that was life.
  Now, when I go back this evening to my apartment, I will have a 
television set that gives me the option of 161 channels. Okay, it's 
true I still watch the same five all the time anyway, but I do have 161 
options in front of me.
  No longer do we have simply a telephone that's on the wall with the 
telephone company telling me what to do. I can go into a store and find 
all sorts of plans on how to communicate with other people in 
television today.
  There are 14 kinds of wheat thins. There are 16 different varieties 
of Pringle potato chips. There are 160 different kinds of Campbell 
soup.
  Even if I want vanilla, I can still go to a store that offers me 31 
opportunities to pick something else.
  The entire life of everyone today in the business world is one that 
deals with giving people choices and options. Whether it's telephone 
plans or kinds of cereal to buy, I have all sorts of options and 
choices in front of me. The business world has recognized that if they 
want business from me, they have to give me choice and options.
  Everywhere in our life today we give choices and options. When I was 
a kid and I heard a song I liked, I had to go to the store and by the 
entire vinyl record and then put it on and hope I could drop the needle 
in the correct groove without destroying the record. I

[[Page 10158]]

don't need to do that anymore. Today my kids have given me an Ipod, 
which means if I hear a song I like, all I now have to do is call up 
one of my kids and say, come over and put it on my Ipod because I don't 
know how to work the stupid thing. But I still have a choice.
  Even--and I'm not trying to be a snob here--even in Dvorak's ``New 
World Symphony,'' which I like, I have to admit I like the first and 
the third movement, and not the second, so no longer do I have to sit 
through about 15 minutes of stuff I don't like before going from the 
first to the third. I simply took it out so I can go directly from the 
first to the third. Those are options.
  Everybody in America today has choices or options given to them, 
until it comes to dealing with the government, especially with the 
Federal Government, because once again, all of a sudden now you come 
back to Washington and you find out that Washington still believes in 
one-size-fits-all-mentality programs and mandates. This is the only 
area where that's found. And the question you should be asking is: Why?
  Well, it's very simple. That's our purpose of being the Federal 
Government. If you need to have something occurring in this country, 
where everyone is doing the exact same thing at the exact same time in 
the exact same way, the Federal Government, the national government 
here in Washington, is the only one that can orchestrate and mandate 
that. So if we have to be in lockstep, this is the level to go. This is 
the place to accomplish that task.
  But, if, indeed, maybe something different is needed and creativity 
and options are important, it's not going to happen from Washington. 
Never has, and I don't think it ever will in the near future. If indeed 
you want something different, then you have to empower State and local 
governments to accomplish that task. If you want creativity, you allow 
States and local governments to fit situations to their particular 
needs and demographics.
  Like my State of Utah is unique among the other States. We have more 
kids than any other State as a percentage of our population. We have 
more small businesses than other State as a percentage of our 
population. And we have a higher percentage of our small businesses 
with no insurance that they offer their employees than any other State 
in the Nation.
  If you want to do some kind of health care program, for example, that 
fits the needs of Utah, with their high student population, their high 
small business population, you're going to have a program that's going 
to be vastly different from a State on the east coast. That doesn't 
happen here in Washington. It will happen if you empower States to come 
up with a new idea.
  If you want efficiency, you empower States. If you want justice so 
that circumstances to a local level that are mitigating circumstances 
can be taken into effect, it can only happen if you empower State and 
local governments to do that.
  Louis Brandeis, in one of his Supreme Court minority decisions, again 
talked about the States as the laboratory of democracy, which simply 
meant, if you want people to explore creative ideas, allow them to do 
so. If States are the ones who are exploring those creative ideas and 
they do something well, it can be replicated by everyone else and maybe 
molded to fit the demographics of everyone else.
  But if a State makes a mistake and it is wrong, only that State is 
negatively impacted. When Washington makes a mistake, everyone is 
impacted negatively, and it is very difficult to try and get out of 
that particular situation.
  That's what the Founding Fathers were talking about. That idea of 
trying to give people choices and options can be accomplished if one 
truly believes in the idea of balance between a national government and 
States so States are empowered to be created, to be innovative, to come 
up with new ways, new approaches, and new ideas. And when we in 
Washington try and set mandates down to tell States how they will do 
things, we take away the creativity. And unfortunately, we also take 
away efficiency, and we take away choices and options from people.
  That's what federalism means. It's not an essay to write in high 
school. It's about how people can live their lives to make choices for 
themselves. And it's very important.
  With that, I'd like to take a break here and yield some time, or as 
much time as he may consume, as well to another great Representative 
from the State of Texas, who also is one of the participants with this 
task force, who recognizes the significance and importance of allowing 
people choices in their lives, and that does not come when the Federal 
Government sets its one-size-fits-all agenda on top of people. I yield 
to the gentleman from Texas for as much time as he may consume.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Well, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding and 
for hosting this night's hour to talk about the Tenth Amendment and 
federalism.
  It's probably been read into the Record 11 dozen times, but I want to 
read a quote from James Madison into the Record that sets the tone for 
what I want to talk about.
  James Madison, in Federalist 45 said: ``The powers delegated to the 
Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in 
the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be 
exercised principally on external objects such as war, peace, 
negotiation and foreign commerce. And the powers reserved to the 
several States will extend to all of the objects in which, in the 
ordinary course of affairs concerns the lives, liberties and properties 
of the people.''
  Mr. Speaker, I'd argue that therein lies much of the problems that we 
face today as a Federal Government. Since 1995, this Congress and the 
various administrative agencies across this vast Federal Government 
have issued some 60,000 new rules and regulations, everything from 
regulating the size of the holes in Swiss cheese to the colors for 
surgical sutures. And I would argue that the size of the holes in Swiss 
cheese probably should be defined by the folks in Wisconsin where they 
do a lot of cheese. But a Federal rule, Federal law that delves into 
that detail into the, as Madison would have referred to it as the 
ordinary course of affairs that concern the lives, liberties and 
properties of the people, that's a government that's overreached.
  Part of our problem is we send people to Congress who are, at their 
core, can-do people, solution people, folks who want to solve issues. 
And our focus here is on every single problem. While our Constitution, 
though, says that we really are limited by the powers granted in the 
Constitution to this government as to those problems which we ought to 
take up, clearly national defense, clearly homeland security, post 
office roads as the phrase is used. But much of what we deal with every 
single day here in Congress is beyond those limited powers, because we 
are solutions-oriented kinds of folks and it's our nature to grab the 
bull by the horns and move forward with it, losing sight, of course, 
that the Constitution says that's not a real good thing for us to be 
doing.
  Let me reemphasize that last sentence: ``The powers reserved to the 
several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary 
course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the 
people.''
  Mr. Speaker, that's an awful lot of the area of lives that committees 
like Education and Workforce or Labor, many of the committees up here 
deal in the ordinary course of affairs of the lives of people.
  Now, part of the rancor that we see across this country related to 
the Federal Government is a sense of powerlessness by the good folks 
back home over issues that really ought to be dealt with back home.

                              {time}  1915

  This rage that we're seeing is driven by an overreaching Federal 
Government. Decisions that are best made at the local level and 
controlled by those people are being usurped and taken care of by 435 
people here in Washington and the 100 Senators on the other side. And 
much of that frustration at being out of control is as a result of this 
Congress taking over jobs

[[Page 10159]]

and areas that are much better left to counties and cities and States 
as the Founding Fathers had intended. If we were to quit delving into 
their personal lives affairs and ordinary course affairs, much of the 
conflict that is out there would disappear and would be focused on the 
local level where the decisions are made best as to the solution that 
best fits those local folks.
  I get asked often by mayors and county judges and city councilmen and 
county commissioners and school superintendents and others, What can we 
do to help? What can we do to address the growing size of this Federal 
Government? One of the ways I ask them to help is to do a better job of 
vetting your requests to me and to your Federal Government for help. 
Make sure that whatever it is that you're asking us to do is a good 
idea, that there is a nexus to the Constitution, that there is a link 
in the Constitution that delegates the powers to this Federal 
Government for it to even deal with the particular problem you're 
bringing to us.
  I would argue that much of our overspending today is driven by 
goodhearted people who have lost sight of the 10th amendment, have come 
up here and asked for help from this Federal Government, not of course 
realizing the strings that are going to be attached to the Federal laws 
that get put in place, when the solution would much better have been 
dealt with at the local level. Federalism, as my colleague from Utah 
has just stated, it's not really a left or right issue. It's not really 
a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. There are good things to be 
had by both sides. Both sides of the aisle should be able to embrace 
this concept so that the States do most of the heavy lifting and the 
counties and cities and local governments do the work that deals with 
the issues confronting their people. So this really shouldn't be a 
particularly partisan effort as we move forward.
  My friend mentioned earlier about the idea that the States should be 
the incubators or the laboratories for experiments with how government 
addresses a particular program. There are two examples that I can think 
of off the top of my head. One is the health care experiment going on 
in Massachusetts. They've been at it now 3 or 4 years and it's 
different than what they thought it would be, they may not be able to 
push that to the scale of the United States, and the people of 
Massachusetts are struggling with how to pay for health care under the 
universal plan that they've put in place where everybody was mandated 
to have insurance. It doesn't look to me like it's working. Why would 
you then want to take that policy and try to extend it across the 
United States? I don't think you would.
  An area where it has worked, and I'll brag on Texas. Six years ago, 
Texas put in place a tort reform program that limited the punitive 
damages on medical malpractice suits. So we've had a 6- or 7-year 
experiment involving 25 million people in Texas and it has worked. 
Doctors are coming to Texas because their malpractice insurance rates 
are lower, and the citizens of Texas are getting the care that they 
need. If a hospital and a physician make a mistake, the economic 
damages in trying to put that person back to as close to what they 
would have been before the mistake was made, that gets done. But these 
punitive damages, which sometimes just defy logic, are no longer on the 
table in Texas.
  And so that experiment, as the President called for in his health 
care speech, to test medical malpractice reform in and around the 
country, I would argue that we've had a 6-, almost 7-year test now 
working with the State of Texas on medical malpractice reform, tort 
reform, that really works. So in that vein, to the extent that this 
would be needed at the Federal level to deal with the vast medical 
programs that we have in place, could be replicated on a much larger 
scale because we've had a big enough test through the State that it 
makes sense.
  Let me finish up by saying that because they lived 230 plus years 
ago, we sometimes give our Founding Fathers short shrift as to how 
intelligent they really were. We think because we are the most 
intelligent people walking the face of the earth, that we've got all 
the great ideas, that we don't really need to look back in the history 
to see and understand what they had in mind.
  Quoting Madison again out of the Federalist Papers, ``The powers 
delegated to the Federal Government are few and defined.'' That means 
if you've got a plan that doesn't fit under one of those powers, then 
the Federal Government really at the end of the day should not pass 
laws that deal with that. We should have the backbone to say, ``That's 
a really tough problem, it's really important to people, but it's not 
the Federal Government's responsibility to address that. You need to 
work within your own system back home to address that issue.''
  That's one of the hardest things Members of Congress do. We hate to 
tell constituents, ``No, that's really not something that the Federal 
Government should be dealing with,'' and yet that really should be the 
answer to many of the requests that we get from back home, is that 
these aren't federal issues. Quoting Madison again, ``Those which are 
to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The 
former will be exercised principally on external objects, such as war, 
peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the 
several States will extend to all the objects which again in the 
ordinary course of affairs concern the lives, liberties and properties 
of the people.''
  Mr. Speaker, I would argue that all of us would learn a much better 
appreciation of how limited this Federal Government really should be if 
we were to go back and take a look at our Founding Fathers' comments 
and just periodically read the Constitution. It is a requirement on my 
staff, and I've introduced legislation that would encourage Members of 
Congress and their staffs to read the Constitution once a year. We all 
have the little pocket versions that we write in the front cover. 
When's the last time that we read the Constitution? It's not a long 
tome. It's 2,500 words or so. It's not like trying to wade through War 
and Peace. You can sit down and read it and understand exactly what 
your Federal Government should be doing, and then everything else is 
left to the States.
  With that, I appreciate the time from my colleague from Utah.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate Mr. Conaway from Texas for once 
again putting it in perspective and giving us some specific examples. 
One more time: If you're dealing with the difference of whether 
Washington comes up with a program or dealing with whether a State has 
the ability of coming up with a program, it's one more time where if 
the State does it, the efficiency of that program is far superior.
  Let me give you a couple of examples of what we have done this year 
in this Congress. We passed a bill in the House, I don't think it's 
gone through the Senate yet, dealing with school construction, allowing 
the Federal Government to assist States with school construction. Now 
on the surface that sounds like a nice idea. The State of Utah, though, 
happens to be one of the States that has an equalization program which 
means already, districts that don't have a need and have extra money 
for construction will have some of that money taken away and given to 
districts where there is a greater need.
  As I asked the sponsor of that bill, how will this Federal aid affect 
equalization, the answer was simply they didn't know; no one had ever 
thought about that kind of a concept. And indeed as the bill was 
developed to try and make sure that the aid went out to what we thought 
as Congress would be equitable, aid went out to Title I schools only, 
under the assumption that if you were a Title I school, you had poorer 
kids. Therefore, as a poorer district, you would need more assistance. 
Well, the bottom line is any aid money that would flow under our 
Federal program to the State of Utah would go to districts that didn't 
need the aid in construction. The districts that did need the aid in 
construction or that help and benefit didn't get anything.

[[Page 10160]]

  And that system unfortunately was replicated in other States, where 
districts that did not need extra Federal help in school construction 
would indeed have gotten extra Federal help. It simply means that we 
don't necessarily know all of the variances that a State and local 
government does and therefore we make different decisions.
  When I was Speaker of the House in Utah, I was obviously always upset 
with the Federal Government for putting more restrictions on me as a 
State legislator. There was one year in which the Federal Government in 
all their wisdom insisted that we buy a new computer system. That was 
back in the era when computers were big and bulky and they took up most 
of a room. We didn't want it but we did not have any option. If we 
wanted to have Carl Perkins funds, which go to technical education, we 
had to buy a new system, a new computer system, out of State funds. We 
couldn't transfer money. It had to come out of State funds. The bottom 
line is we did not spend as much on kids for technical education that 
year because instead we had to take our funds and spend it on a 
computer system that we didn't want, that we didn't need, and we also 
never used; simply because it was a Federal mandate. That's what you 
lose in this process.
  Utah had some great registration rolls, until the Federal Government 
insisted that motor voter had to be a mandate that every State did. So 
instead of being able to go through our election rolls, our voter 
rolls, every 4 years as we were doing to make sure they were current, 
we now could not do it until 10 years had passed. Consequently, if you 
look at the number of people who are now registered in the State of 
Utah and the number of kids we have, the numbers quite frankly don't 
add up. Our voter rolls are in worse shape because the Federal 
Government insisted the State had to do it a particular way in every 
State, whether it made sense or not, and the State had to actually pay 
for that opportunity at the same time.
  We had a bill before us a few weeks ago in which we tried to mandate 
physical education. There is nothing wrong with physical education in 
our public schools. There is nothing wrong with emphasizing it. There 
is nothing wrong with kids needing it. What is wrong is that Congress 
is not a school board. And school boards should be making those kinds 
of decisions.
  One of the things that we have to realize is that words in the course 
of history change their meaning. If you went back to the time of the 
Constitution and you used the word ``awful,'' awful back then did not 
mean something that was bad; awful meant something that was good and 
inspired awe. If you talked about a natural man, a natural man was 
somebody back then who was a reasonable individual. If you also talked 
about the verb to discover, discover back then did not mean to find 
something you don't know about; it meant to reveal something about 
which you do know to someone else. Words have different meanings.
  One of the phrases that's in the Constitution, both in the first 
article as well as in the preamble, is the phrase ``general welfare.'' 
That's one of the phrases that means different things. Today we have 
the tendency of reading that word and emphasizing the last word of 
``welfare.'' The Founding Fathers when they wrote that phrase 
emphasized the first word of ``general,'' which simply meant that the 
Federal Government was only supposed to do things that impacted the 
general welfare, with emphasis on the word ``general.'' It meant only 
doing those things that impacted everybody in this country, not a 
particular person. That's why Presidents Madison and Monroe vetoed road 
projects. Jackson vetoed a road project because the road project only 
helped and benefited people in the area of that road and therefore was 
not general welfare. Well, we have changed that concept as time simply 
has gone on, not necessarily for the better.
  I was giving a speech once on this very floor in which I talked about 
how they meant general welfare to be and how it was a restricting 
concept, not an expansive concept, and I got a call from one of the C-
SPAN viewers the next day saying I appreciated the speech, it was very 
nice; however, she took umbrage at what I said because she said there 
were certain programs the government did that she liked. I said, 
``Ma'am, you have missed the very point I and the Founding Fathers were 
taking.'' The Founding Fathers said you don't have to have all these 
programs. What they said is not every program has to be designed and 
administered and funded through Washington; that those programs are 
opportunities and can be done equally as well being done by a State and 
local government as they are here.
  Through all my life, my party has talked about trying to reduce the 
size and scope of government. I think as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Neugebauer) pointed out, that the deficit we had in 1962 was $100 
million, our deficit today should be somewhere around $3.5 trillion. 
Obviously we have failed somewhere. In the history of this country over 
the last half century, both Republicans and Democrats, the growth of 
government in Washington has continued. The best thing I can say is one 
party has had a slower growth pattern than the other party, but that's 
about the best you can say, because growth has happened. It is almost 
as if leaders in Washington, regardless of party, are unable to stop 
the size and the expansion and the growth of the Federal Government.
  The reality is that our current system is basically rigged in favor 
of government growth. The incentives, the bureaucracy, power structure, 
institutions of Washington, have all evolved to help the Federal 
Government to acquire more power and influence, not less. What we need 
to do is look at the change in approach, and that's what the Founding 
Fathers were talking about. Not our goal but our approach. What the 
Founding Fathers were talking about is not simply cutting government, 
it was dispersing government, so different levels of government could 
do different kinds of programs and not everything has to come through 
Washington.

                              {time}  1930

  That's one of the things we're talking about with the 10th Amendment 
Caucus is how can we find ways to disperse government programs back to 
local governments where they can be done more creatively, more 
efficiently, and understanding local circumstances, whether it be P.E. 
programs or school constructions or technical education or voter 
registration rolls or roads or anything else.
  Now, that's what the Founding Fathers intended, that the programs be 
implemented at State level and the tax money for those programs remain 
at those State and local levels, which is why, as Mr. Conaway said, 
this is not a program about liberals and conservatives. If a liberal 
wants to expand government, fine. It can be done under federalism. But 
what you do is make sure that the government that is closest to the 
people runs it so it is a much more effective and efficient government 
program. And if you are a conservative who wants limited government in 
some way, then fine, you can do that as well. You both get what you 
want if federalism and the 10th Amendment are respected here in 
Washington as true principles as the way we govern ourselves and how we 
conduct ourselves in the future.
  That is, indeed, the goal of what should be here: the goal of the 
importance. That's the importance of the 10th Amendment. It should 
allow people to get what they want, which is better government, more 
efficient government, better and more efficient programs.
  I recognize that we have a couple of others who have joined us here.
  I am appreciative that the gentlelady from North Carolina, 
Representative Foxx, is here. I'd like to yield her as much time as she 
may wish to consume on this topic as well.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank Mr. Bishop, the gentleman from Utah, for 
being in charge of this Special Order tonight and bringing to the 
American people what I think is one of the most critical issues facing 
us in this country, and that is the issue of federalism and the

[[Page 10161]]

need for us to adhere to the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States.
  Too few people really understand the role of the Federal Government 
in our country. We've gotten away from the teaching of the 
Constitution. We've gotten away from the teaching of the role of 
government in our country. People have this notion that they have this 
right and that right, and if you press them to tell you whether they've 
read the Constitution or not, most of them will tell you they have not. 
And they really do not understand, again, what the roles of our 
respective governments are.
  In the last week, while we had a little bit of time away from 
Washington and I managed to squeeze out some quiet time, I had the 
chance to read a Joseph Ellis book called ``American Creation,'' which 
talks about the triumphs and the tragedies of the beginning of our 
country. And it's really important that we understand that there were a 
lot of conflicts that came about in the founding of the United States. 
It wasn't as smooth a thing as many of us think that it was. But one 
thing that was very clear to all of the Founders was the issue of 
federalism.
  The idea of the United States of America was a radical idea to begin 
with. Never before had people believed that they had freedoms and that 
they had inalienable rights given to them by God. So it was a totally 
radical idea. But add to that the idea that you shouldn't have a 
Federal Government that would control everything from Washington, and 
it was absolutely radical. And we owe a great deal to George 
Washington, our first President, for not trying to be king and 
understanding that we needed to send power, delegate power, let power 
be held at the State and local levels.
  We can see the unhealthiness of the growing role of the Federal 
Government fairly easy in numbers, and I'm going to quote a couple of 
numbers for you.
  Since 1995 alone, the Federal Government has issued nearly 60,000 new 
rules governing everything from the size of the holes in Swiss cheese 
to what colors are allowed for surgical stitches. Federal spending 
surpassed a hundred billion dollars only in 1962 for the first time. 
That was a huge amount of money in 1962. And back then, people were 
saying a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking 
about real money. In 2010, the Federal spending will surpass $3.5 
trillion.
  I think there are very few people in the country who really believe 
that the best way to do things is to have them done by the Federal 
Government. I'm a very, very strong 10th Amendment person, as are my 
colleagues here, and I'm really pleased to be a part of the 10th 
Amendment Task Force. And perhaps my colleagues went over these 
earlier, but I'm going to mention them very quickly, what our mission 
is and what our goals are.
  Our mission is to disperse power from Washington and restore the 
constitutional balance of power through liberty-enhancing federalism. 
And we have five goals:
  Educate Congress and the public about federalism. You might wonder 
why Congress needs to be educated, but many Members of Congress really 
don't understand the concept of federalism;
  Number two, develop proposals to disperse power to regional entities, 
States, local governments, private institutions, community groups, 
families, and individuals;
  Three, elevate federalism as a core Republican focus;
  Four, monitor threats to the 10th Amendment principles; and
  Five, help build and foster a federalist constituency.
  So we know what it is we need to be doing. We have worked as a 
Constitutional Caucus in the past to do our best to educate people, but 
focusing, I think, on the 10th Amendment is very, very important. And 
again, I'm very pleased to be a part of this.
  Let me say some more about federalism.
  The term is foreign to many people, but most Americans care about the 
things that federalism brings without even knowing it. Federalism 
brings choice, options, flexibility, and freedom. Federalism is not a 
concept of either the right or the left. It is neither a Republican nor 
a Democrat idea. Decentralization and community empowerment can be a 
worthy goal of both the left and the right. Both sides have something 
to gain under a federalist revival.
  And this is not yesterday's States rights arguments. It's much bigger 
than that. This is about better governance. This is about adjusting 
modern politics to modern life. This is about breaking up big, 
inefficient, unresponsive government and returning power to the people.
  As my colleague was using some illustrations a little bit ago about 
education, as one who was involved with education a great deal before 
coming to Congress, I wholly subscribe to the concepts which he 
presented.
  Let me give a couple of other things about federalism, and then I'm 
going to turn it back to my colleague from Utah or to my colleague from 
Texas, both of whom who are extremely eloquent on this issue.
  In a nutshell, federalism is the best system, because it brings 
government closer to the people. It nurtures civic virtue. It protects 
liberty. It takes advantage of local information. It stimulates policy 
innovation, and it alleviates political tensions.
  In other words, federalism was the Founders' original formula for 
freedom and good government. It's time to reinvigorate this freedom-
enhancing principle of government.
  Again, I know very few people who believe that we should go to the 
Federal Government to solve all of our problems. We should first solve 
the problems that government needs to solve at the local level, then at 
the State level, and as a last resort, go to the Federal Government. 
Unfortunately, too many people think of the Federal Government first, 
and that complicates our lives.
  We have a huge deficit and a huge debt right now because too many 
people have looked to the Federal Government to solve problems that 
could have been solved at the local and State levels for much less 
money and in a much more efficient way. I'll just give one example.
  The problem that we're having in the gulf right now, that is a 
problem that does need to be solved by the Federal Government. But is 
the Federal Government prepared to do that? No. Why? Because the 
Federal Government's involved with way too many other things. The 
Federal Government should be looking after national security, I think 
national parks, our interstate highways, maybe the Federal Aviation 
Administration. But we're doing too much or attempting to do too much 
at the Federal level and not doing those things that we should be doing 
as well as we should be doing.
  So, again, I want to thank my colleague from Utah for being in charge 
of this Special Order tonight and giving us a chance to do all that we 
can to educate others.
  I'm Virginia Foxx from the Fifth District of North Carolina, and if 
you'd like more information about this issue, please go to my Web site 
or contact me and I'll be more than happy to share information about 
this, because, as Jefferson said, the price of freedom is eternal 
vigilance, and we must help educate our fellow Americans on this issue 
if we want to maintain the wonderful country that we have.
  And with that, I'll yield to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Bishop.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for 
coming down here and helping assist with this. She did a wonderful job 
in trying to put everything in some kind of perspective.
  I think what we've talked about tonight is an effort to try and 
ensure that what the Founding Fathers did when they wrote the 10th 
Amendment in the First Congress, when that was part of the Bill of 
Rights, and indeed what they did in Philadelphia is they structured 
government the way it was. It had a purpose--separating power 
horizontally between the branches of government and, equally important, 
separating vertically between the national and States--had a specific 
purpose, and it was to ensure that there

[[Page 10162]]

would always be a balance so that not one entity had too much power to 
use that to abuse people.
  Making sure there is a balance is the key element to protecting 
individual rights and individual liberty. By allowing States to have a 
primary function, we become more creative. We have differing ideas, 
which means if people really want choices and options and a way of 
making sure that government is efficient and government is what they 
want in their particular area, you must empower State and local 
government to do that; which means you have to take away the power and 
the authority of the programs from Washington--which, by its very 
nature, can only come up with a one-size-fits-all system--and disperse 
that power, authority, and programs back down to State and local 
governments where people, once again, can have greater impact, greater 
input, and those programs can be done to meet the needs of our 
particular area.
  This is a great country because of our size and diversity. But it 
also means if you want to have a government program that helps people 
and is not simply to blindly put a standard, as Nelson Rockefeller 
said, by the deafening hands of bureaucrats, then you need to make sure 
that we empower State and local governments so they do those programs. 
General welfare means that State and local governments get a greater 
role in how government programs are run because they can do it much 
more effectively and much more efficiently.
  I have a few minutes remaining, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to 
yield those few minutes to another great legislator from the State of 
Texas, which is blessed by a lot of good legislators we have here in 
Congress, and Mr. Gohmert would like to talk for a few minutes about 
Article V of the Constitution. I would like to yield time to him to 
accomplish that.
  Mr. GOHMERT. As kind of a supplemental discussion from my friend from 
Utah--and I would love to have had one of the gentleman's classes in 
Utah. We would love to have had you teach in Texas. You are such a good 
teacher.
  Supplementing the teaching that you've already provided, I'd just 
like to take people, Mr. Speaker, to Article V of the Constitution. 
It's a great document. I want to encourage people to read that, as my 
friends have already mentioned.
  Some have said you would never want to have an amendment convention 
because it might be full of people who would come up with crazy 
amendments that would destroy the country, and so you would never want 
to do that. Some have said these guys that wrote the Constitution did 
such a perfect job, we should never allow an Amendment Constitution 
provided under Article V because that might mess it up.

                              {time}  1945

  But then on the other hand, if these guys did such a perfect job on 
the Constitution, then they must have put Article V in here for a 
reason.
  Article V simply says, ``The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both 
Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this 
Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds 
of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing 
amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and 
purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the 
legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions 
in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification 
may be proposed by the Congress.''
  Now, some have said, well, if you allowed the second part, the part 
that has never been utilized in the whole history of the United States, 
it would be destructive to the country. My point is, if we don't do 
something radical--and I'm not talking violence, that's completely 
unnecessary--but something radical from a congressional standpoint, 
from a national standpoint, we see where this is all going.
  Just as my friends have been talking about, the excesses and the 
abuses are bringing this country to an incredible cliff. You know, we 
just read that China has now bought enough that it is approaching $1 
trillion that it owns of the United States' debt. Well, that makes it a 
little tougher, doesn't it, to use leverage against China when we owe 
them that much money. Growing up, I had Sunday school lessons about the 
Bible teaching whoever you borrow money from becomes your master, and 
we've done that because we can't control the spending.
  So we need something that is a little out of the ordinary to bring 
this thing in, and what better method than the one that the 
constitutional founders, the drafters, put in there, approved, and the 
States ratified, and that is to say, you know what, it's time for an 
amendment convention.
  We have usurped so much power from the States--and this latest health 
care debacle, the health care deform bill that was passed and signed 
into law now, has the potential to bankrupt States that were having a 
hard enough time as it is.
  Well, those States have power under our Constitution, and as we know, 
up until the 17th amendment, when those in Washington--and this was 
apparently pushed by Woodrow Wilson. He liked the idea of the Federal 
Government running everything, and he would have been really proud of 
the health care bill because it was all about the GRE, the government 
running everything.
  So this 17th amendment was an effective way of taking away any check 
or balances that the States were provided under the Constitution 
because, under the Constitution, the State legislatures selected the 
U.S. Senators. Most students were never taught that. But the founders 
felt like there had to be a way that the Federal Government could be 
prevented from just usurping all the power from the States and the 
people as the tenth amendment talks about, and this would be it, 
because you would never send a Senator up here from your State, if 
you're a State legislature, if he's going to add unfunded mandates to 
your responsibilities in the States and take away your power at the 
same time. There were Senators that were recalled.
  So, from the day after the health care bill was passed here in the 
House, I've been talking about an Article V amendment convention that 
would allow the States to come together and propose amendments. Now, 
there's difference of opinion. I had a wonderful conversation with 
former Attorney General Ed Meese about this. He has some good ideas as 
well.
  But we have got to do something. And I am not in favor of repealing 
the 17th amendment, have never been in favor of repealing the 17th 
amendment, but there are some wonderful ways of reining in the Federal 
Government, maybe giving the States the right to veto legislation. So, 
there are a number of things, and as we saw back when the States were 
gathering momentum to have an amendment convention, Congress got scared 
that that would really happen so they rushed in and voted to repeal 
prohibition, proposed that of course as a constitutional amendment and 
it passed.
  So maybe the States need to start that gathering storm, and we could 
get Congress to do what it needs and, that is, give the States some 
power like they originally had.
  I appreciate so much my friend from Utah yielding.

                          ____________________