[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18031-18036]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            COMMERCE CLAUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reallocates the balance of the 
majority leader's time to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. In Hosea 4:6, God says:

       My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you 
     have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as My priests; 
     because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will 
     ignore your children.

  This is a promise from a holy, righteous God who could do nothing 
else but fulfill that promise. We have to look at this and understand 
that, in this country, we have a tremendous lack of knowledge about our 
U.S. Constitution and that we have a tremendous lack of knowledge about 
the biblical foundations of our Nation and of how our Founding Fathers 
believed in liberty. We're losing that liberty tremendously because we 
have a tremendous lack of knowledge.
  In Psalm 11, God says:

       If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to 
     do?

  I believe it's a call to duty to rebuild the foundational principles 
that are behind liberty.
  Sworn officers of the United States--in fact, all public servants--
have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies both 
foreign and domestic; and for decades, sworn officers

[[Page 18032]]

of the United States have been violating that oath to uphold and 
protect our Nation's most precious document, the U.S. Constitution. 
Domestically, there are many by their actions, either intentionally or 
unintentionally, who undermine our governing document.
  Every day, officials, ranging from Federal judges to U.S. Senators to 
Members of the House to leadership, ignore the original intent of our 
Founders that was put in the Constitution of the United States. The 
distortion is so great now that there is little correlation between 
their words and our actions here in Washington, D.C. This has become 
the norm for today's body of government, but it was not what the great 
lawmakers of the past envisioned for America's future.
  Today, I would like to focus in particular on one clause of the 
Constitution in which we have seen a dramatic and dangerous distortion 
of our Founding Fathers' original intent. The Commerce Clause has 
slowly been eroded by the selfishness of politicians and of the courts 
alike. Nowadays, it can be carelessly applied to almost any case that 
expands the size and scope of the Federal Government as it relates to 
our economy.
  Today, I want to walk you through time, starting with our Founding 
Fathers' original intent for the clause and then moving through the 
years to point out specific cases that have led to the deterioration of 
the Commerce Clause. We'll end with a modern-day situation that I know 
everybody in this country is familiar with--that being the 
constitutionality of ObamaCare. I hope that all of our viewers will 
stay with me throughout the hour, because it is so important that you 
help me to educate the rest of your neighbors, your families, your 
friends on how the Federal Government has spiraled out of control.
  It's up to the American people--we the people--to demand that 
Washington gets back to constitutionally limited government as our 
Founding Fathers intended. We've gotten away from their thoughts; we've 
gotten away from their intent of our government; and we see the 
problems that we have today because of that.
  There are many aspects that have contributed to the overreach of 
today's government, but the single biggest offender has been the ever-
expanding interpretation of the Commerce Clause in article I, section 8 
of the Constitution. In fact, as an original intent constitutionalist, 
I say we should not interpret the Constitution; we must apply the 
Constitution as it was intended.
  Article I, section 8 of the Commerce Clause states:

       To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the 
     several States and with the Indian tribes.

  So what does it mean ``to regulate commerce''?
  To understand what is meant by the word ``commerce,'' a great place 
to start is with the Constitution, itself.
  Article I, section 9 of the document states:

       No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce 
     or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another, 
     nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to 
     enter, clear or pay duties in another.

  What does that mean? ``Commerce'' is between States. Commerce is 
supposed to go across State lines. That's what ``commerce'' means. The 
word ``commerce'' was regularly understood by both the Framers of the 
Constitution and the general public at that time to mean ``trade 
between States.''
  Now, what about the words ``to regulate''?
  During that period of time, the term ``regulate'' meant ``to make 
regular,'' not ``to control'' as it is so often used today. It means to 
make regular, to make it work, to expand commerce--not to control it. 
To put it in plain words, the original intent of the Commerce Clause 
was to make that commerce and trade between the States ``normal,'' or 
``regular.'' It was designed to promote trade and exchange, not to 
hinder it with crushing regulations. Moreover, the Framers of the 
Constitution wanted to make sure that commerce between the States was 
not limited by taxes or tariffs. Here are some examples of what James 
Madison and Alexander Hamilton envisioned.
  In Federalist 45, James Madison wrote:

       The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the 
     Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to 
     remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

  I encourage people to read the Constitution of the United States. The 
10th Amendment says, if a power is not specifically given to the 
Federal Government by the Constitution, then the 18 things in article 
I, section 8--that begin here and end here in this little booklet, 
these 18 things--are all the Constitution gives Congress the authority 
to vote upon--18. That's it. National defense-national security should 
be the major function of the Federal Government. It's certainly not 
meant to expand beyond what the Constitution says, as James Madison 
wrote in Federalist 45.

                              {time}  1430

  Simply put, Madison was reinforcing the point that the powers of the 
Federal Government, under the proposed Constitution, should be very 
limited, while the powers within the States are broad in scope and are 
more individualized and are extremely broad in character.
  Again, the commerce clause was not meant to be stretched as thin as 
it is today, where it can be applied to almost all forms of economic 
prosperity at both the State as well as the Federal levels. We'll get 
into more specific examples in just a few minutes.
  Here is a quote from Alexander Hamilton, one of the Federalists who 
wanted a strong Federal Government. He wrote in Federalist 11, where he 
makes the case that the States should have unrestrained economic 
interaction with each other to, therefore, bolster U.S. productivity 
and make our exports more desirable to foreign markets:

       An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves 
     will advance the trade of each by an interchange of their 
     respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal 
     wants at home, but for exportation to foreign markets. The 
     veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will 
     acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation 
     of the commodities of every part.

  Hamilton felt as though enterprise would have a greater scope from 
the diversity in the goods of different States. He also felt as though 
when an industry suffered in one State, it should be able to ask for 
assistance from other States.
  Hamilton went on to say:

       The variety, not less than the value, of products for 
     exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. 
     It can be conducted upon much better terms with a large 
     number of materials of a given value than with a small number 
     of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions 
     of trade and from the fluctuations of markets. Particular 
     articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and 
     unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, 
     it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in 
     the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of 
     the merchant would be less liable to any considerable 
     obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at 
     once perceive the force of these observations, and will 
     acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the 
     United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than 
     that of the thirteen States without union or with partial 
     unions.

  He is saying this in an argument geared towards a strong union of 
Federal Government. But what's he saying there? That the commerce of 
the States in a whole should be considered. So to sum it up, it is 
without a doubt that the commerce clause was intended to ensure free 
trade between the States and to ultimately create the most balanced and 
desirable American products to sell to foreign buyers.
  Let's take a look at some specific cases that led to the destruction 
of the commerce clause. In the first case, we are going to examine 
Gibbons v. Ogden. This was in 1824. It is the first case in which the 
commerce clause was broadened beyond its original meaning under the 
Constitution. Here's a little background on the case:
  The State of New York had passed a law granting two operators, Robert 
R. Livingston and Robert Fulton, the exclusive right to operate 
steamboats within the waters of the State of New

[[Page 18033]]

York. Operators from outside the State of New York wishing to navigate 
waters within New York were required to get a special permit in order 
to do so. Aaron Ogden filed suit, arguing that this State-sponsored 
monopoly was in opposition to Congress' constitutional authority to 
regulate interstate commerce.
  In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the word 
``commerce,'' as found in the Constitution, includes in its definition 
the transport of goods between States. This ruling is inconsistent with 
the Framers' intent, as you can see in Federalist 42 when James Madison 
wrote:

       To those who do not view the question through the medium of 
     passion or of interest, the desire of the commercial States 
     to collect, in any form, an indirect revenue from their 
     uncommercial neighbors, must appear not less impolitic than 
     it is unfair; since it would stimulate the injured party, by 
     resentment as well as interest, to resort to less convenient 
     channels for their foreign trade.

  ``Foreign trade,'' commerce opening up between the States, not 
control within the States, is what he's saying here.
  Madison went on to equate commerce with what he described as 
``intercourse'' between States and wrote that the definition of ``among 
the States,'' as stated in the Constitution, was quite broad. He wrote:

       The word ``among'' means intermingled with. A thing which 
     is among others is intermingled with them. Commerce among the 
     States cannot stop at the external boundary line of each 
     State, but may be introduced into the interior. It may very 
     properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more 
     States than one.

  As a result, subsequent courts have ruled that Congress has the power 
to regulate commerce that not only is truly interstate in nature but 
also commerce which affects more than one State.
  As Matthew Clemente of FreedomWorks pointed out in a recent series on 
how the commerce clause relates to the expansion of the Federal 
Government through health care, this broad interpretation of the 
commerce clause has resulted in justifications of a number of Federal 
laws that regulate purely intrastate activities.
  In the end, the Marshall court struck down New York's law because of 
its view that Congress, not the States, has the power to control 
navigation within each State so long as it relates to interstate 
commerce. And this opened the door for even looser readings of the 
commerce clause in later cases.
  So just to quickly recap, in this case the court ruled that Congress 
has both the power to regulate both commerce that is truly interstate 
in nature and actions related to commerce which affect more than one 
State, even if not through one common channel.
  But the reality is that in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton 
repeatedly equates commerce with trade between nations, as we've 
already seen. He does not ever give it a broader meaning related to 
activities carried out within each State, which may also affect 
activities in other States.
  Let's look at another case. In this one, it's Swift & Co. v. United 
States in 1905. The case revolved around a number of meat dealers in 
Chicago that had formed a meat trust in which they agreed not to bet 
against one another in an effort to control meat prices. At the same 
time, the members of the trust convinced the railroads to charge them 
below normal rates to transport their product. The U.S. Government 
stepped in, attempting to use the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up 
this trust.
  Using the open door left by Marshall's expansion of the language of 
the commerce clause in Swift, the court went a step further and ruled 
that ``activities involved in the `stream of commerce' were fair game 
for congressional regulation''--totally against the original intent. In 
his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that the elements of 
the meat trust's scheme were such that it was clear that ``the 
participants meant to monopolize the meat trade within the State of 
Illinois.''
  Holmes took this observation a step further by saying that while the 
trust's intention may only have been to create a monopoly within its 
own State, the trust's ``effect upon commerce among the States is not 
accidental, secondary, remote, or merely probable.'' He went on to 
differentiate this case from cases related to manufacturing, stating 
that ``here, the subject matter is sales, and the very point of the 
combination is to restrain and monopolize commerce among the States in 
respect of such sales,'' due to the fact that the meat at issue likely 
had roots in several different States, not just Illinois, and that its 
end destination could also have been within a different State, that, in 
effect, it was affecting the ``stream of commerce.''

                              {time}  1440

  Thus, the ruling in Swift had the effect of allowing congressional 
regulation of actions which could potentially affect commerce in other 
States--not what actually would affect commerce, but potentially affect 
commerce in other States--such as the sale of items which could be 
considered to be within the stream of commerce. Again, a further 
expansion of the original intent.
  Again, to recap what this case has shown us, the court ruled that 
activities involved in the stream of commerce, or potentially could be 
involved in the stream of commerce, may be regulated by Congress. But 
in reality, this decision had the effect of allowing Congress to 
regulate not just actions which could affect more than one State, but 
also actions which are considered to be within the stream of commerce. 
As a result, it widens the breadth of issues over which Congress might 
assert authority under the commerce clause, totally against the 
original intent.
  Next in Stafford v. Wallace in 1921, we see Congress passed the 
Packers and Stockyards Act in 1921 to create new regulations on 
meatpackers in response to charges that their practices were unfair, 
discriminatory, and encouraged the formation of monopolies.
  In Stafford, the court reaffirmed its decision in Swift that we just 
talked about, finding that Congress could regulate activities within 
stockyards--seen as local in nature--because they are a part of a 
channel of commerce.
  Writing the decision, Chief Justice William Howard Taft stated that 
``the object to be secured by the act is the free and unburdened flow 
of livestock from the ranges and farms of the West and the Southwest 
through the great stockyards and slaughtering centers on the borders of 
that region, and thence in the form of meat products to the consuming 
cities of the country in the Middle West and East, or, still, as 
livestock, to the feeding places and fattening farms in the Middle West 
or East for further preparation for the market.''
  And he went on to state that in his opinion any practice which 
``unduly and directly'' affects the expenses incurred during the 
passage of livestock through stockyards is an ``unjust obstruction to 
that commerce,'' and as a result, Congress has the ability to step in 
and regulate it.
  Here the court rules that the commerce clause allows Congress to act 
if it believes that a local entity is preventing the ``free and 
unburdened'' flow of a good which could have its roots in multiple 
States, such as cattle moving to stockyards and to packing plants. But 
in reality, this simply reaffirmed the Swift decision which allowed 
Congress to insert itself into any activity that affects more than one 
State.
  Then in Wickard v. Filburn, this case threw open the doors, widely 
opened the doors to allow Congress to regulate any activity that might 
relate to interstate commerce. I'm sure the Founding Fathers would roll 
over in their graves if they knew what kind of power the court bestowed 
on the Federal Government with the decision in this particular case.
  So let me give you a little background information on this case so 
you can grasp how ridiculous the court's decision was in this case. 
Roscoe Filburn was a farmer who was penalized by the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture for harvesting more wheat than he was allotted by a USDA 
regulation that set quotas for wheat crops. Filburn filed suit, 
claiming that he was

[[Page 18034]]

not going to sell the extra wheat, that he was only going to be using 
it on his own farm for his own family; and, therefore, the Federal 
Government should not have any say in the matter. Justice Robert H. 
Jackson wrote in his opinion that ``the commerce power is not confined 
in its exercise to the regulation of commerce among the States. It 
extends to those activities interstate which so affect interstate 
commerce.''
  He went on to write, as this poster shows:

       Even if an activity be local, and though it may not be 
     regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be 
     reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic 
     effect on interstate commerce.

  In other words, anything could be considered under the commerce 
clause. Anything could be regulated by Congress. Anything. And that's 
what we see today.
  Most recently, in 2005, the court reaffirmed the decision in Wickard 
v. Filburn in the ruling of Gonzales v. Raich, which shows the court's 
anti-original intent interpretation of the commerce clause to date. 
This, I remind you, was just a few years ago in 2005. This is the 
widest interpretation of the commerce clause, showing that Congress may 
not even need to show evidence that an action could affect interstate 
commerce before it is able to regulate it.
  This case also established that Congress needs only to find that a 
``rational basis'' exists for believing that an action could affect 
interstate commerce in order to regulate it. Again, in this case the 
court ruled that Congress may regulate any activity which might relate 
to interstate commerce. How inane. How unconstitutional. The reality is 
it's just absurd that Congress should have this power under the 
commerce clause to stop a farmer from using his own crops to feed his 
own livestock and his own family simply because his doing so may result 
in his not purchasing wheat from elsewhere within the marketplace.
  The cases we just discussed show the court's willingness to use the 
commerce clause to justify congressional regulation on just about any 
activity which might affect commerce. However, the Rehnquist court 
broke from this trend and decided two key cases which limited the use 
of the commerce clause when the regulation was not firmly based on 
economic activity. I firmly believe that we need to move even more 
drastically in the direction that the Rehnquist court established.
  In 1995, U.S. v. Lopez was the first case where a distinction was 
drawn between using the commerce clause to regulate economic activity 
and using it to regulate any activity which could potentially impact 
commerce.
  Alfonzo Lopez was a high school student who was charged with 
possessing a firearm on school property under the Gun-Free School Zones 
Act of 1990. Lopez challenged the act, claiming that the commerce 
clause does not grant Congress the authority to say where someone may 
or may not carry a gun. Attorneys for the Federal Government argued 
that the possession of a gun--and this is just so far out and crazy, 
it's hard to believe, but this is exactly what they argued--the Federal 
Government attorneys argued that possession of a gun on school grounds 
could lead to violent crime--well, the gun doesn't make it lead to 
violent crime, but that's what they were claiming--and this would 
increase insurance costs. And it would also deter visitors from coming 
to the general area, thus dampening the local economy. They also argued 
that students who fear violence at their schools are more likely to be 
distracted in the classroom, resulting in a less-educated workforce and 
an overall weaker national economy. Boy, that's far reaching, but this 
is what your Federal Government attorneys argued in this case.
  In his opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote:

       The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no 
     sense an economic activity that might substantially affect 
     any sort of interstate commerce. To uphold the government's 
     contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon 
     inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert 
     congressional authority under the commerce clause to a 
     general police power.

  We have seen that over and over where Congress has generated a bigger 
and bigger Federal criminal justice system under the Commerce Clause 
when we have absolutely no constitutional authority to do that.

                              {time}  1450

  Rehnquist went on to say:

       Congress could regulate any activity that it found was 
     related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: 
     family law, including marriage, divorce and child custody, 
     for example. Under theories, it is difficult to perceive any 
     limitation on Federal power, even in areas such as criminal 
     law enforcement or education where States historically have 
     been sovereign. Thus, if we were to accept the government's 
     arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an 
     individual that Congress is without power to regulate.

  And he is absolutely correct. He added:

       Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps 
     down that road, giving great deference to congressional 
     action, but we decline here to proceed further.

  The quote on this poster shows Rehnquist admitting how in cases I 
have already talked to you about, the cases in the past, the Commerce 
Clause has been stretched very thin and often misapplied. In Lopez, 
Rehnquist ruled that Congress may not use the Commerce Clause to 
regulate noneconomic activity, even in cases where it could find a 
tangential connection between that activity and the health of the 
economy at large.
  U.S. v. Morrison, in 2000, built on the findings of Lopez and 
reaffirmed the Court's opinion that Congress could not reach to the 
Commerce Clause to regulate activity which only tangentially touched 
interstate commerce.
  In 1994, Christy Brzonkala was sexually assaulted by two of her 
college classmates. She filed suit against them under the Violence 
Against Women Act of 1994, which provided a Federal civil remedy for 
``victims of gender-motivated violence.'' Her classmates argued that 
Congress had no authority to regulate violence against women under the 
Commerce Clause. Attorneys for the Federal Government argued that 
gender-motivated violence, and the fear of such violence, substantially 
affects interstate commerce.
  Again writing the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist 
stated:

       The Violence Against Women Act is supported by numerous 
     findings regarding the serious impact that gender-motivated 
     violence has on victims and their families.

  And it certainly does.

       But the existence of Congressional findings is not 
     sufficient, by itself, to sustain the constitutionality of 
     Commerce Clause legislation. As we stated in Lopez, ``simply 
     because Congress may conclude that a particular activity 
     substantially affects interstate commerce does not 
     necessarily make it so.''

  He added:

       Thus far in our Nation's history our cases have upheld 
     Commerce Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where 
     that activity is economic in nature.

  In this case, the Court ruled that Congress is not able to use the 
Commerce Clause to regulate noneconomic behavior. At the same time, the 
Constitution delegates such regulation to the States as an exercise of 
the State's police powers, not the Federal Government's, but the 
police's, the State's police powers.
  This particular case is just chock full of great quotes, and I'd like 
to just take a few minutes to read some of them, the first being on 
this poster.

       The Constitution requires a distinction between what is 
     truly national and what is truly local.
       Given petitioners' arguments, the concern that we expressed 
     in Lopez that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to 
     completely obliterate the Constitution's distinction between 
     national and local authority seems well founded.

  The next quote out of that decision reads:

       If accepted, petitioners' reasoning would allow Congress to 
     regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated 
     impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, 
     production, transit, or consumption.

  He went on to say:

       Indeed, we can think of no better example of the police 
     power, which the Founding Fathers denied the Federal 
     Government and reposed in the States, than the suppression of 
     violent crime and vindication of its victims.

  Lastly, Rehnquist closed this case by saying this:


[[Page 18035]]

       If the allegations here are true, no civilized system of 
     justice could fail to provide her a remedy for the conduct, 
     but under our Federal system that remedy must be provided by 
     the State and not by the United States.

  As you can see through Rehnquist's decisions in these two cases that 
we just talked about, the Commerce Clause cannot and should not be 
utilized to expand the police powers of the Federal Government. The 
crimes in these cases that were treated as Federal crimes should have 
been handled either by the State or locally. We do not have 
constitutional authority to create an ever larger Federal criminal 
justice system. In fact, initially, there were only three Federal 
felonies: treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. And that is 
counterfeiting against coinage, money.
  Now let's come to an issue that is important right now. It's one of 
the biggest assaults on freedom to date, and one of the worst 
perversions of the Commerce Clause that I have ever seen. And I'm 
talking about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly 
known as ObamaCare.
  Using the decisions in Lopez and Morrison, it is clear that Congress 
lacks the authority to institute the individual mandate set forth in 
ObamaCare, as well as all the State mandates that are in that law.
  The individual mandate requires all citizens to have some form of 
health insurance, whether they want to have it or not. Chief Justice 
Rehnquist made it clear in Morrison that just because Congress has 
stated that it has an interest in regulating what kind of health care 
Americans purchase--or whether they purchase it at all, whether they 
purchase it or don't purchase it--does not make it so.
  And it is not a stretch to infer from Rehnquist's decision that he 
would have also struck down the individual mandate, especially given 
the fact that he opposed the idea of the Commerce Clause allowing 
Congress to regulate anything that could have a substantial effect on 
employment, production, transit, or consumption.
  In a series of articles written by Matthew Clemente of FreedomWorks, 
he argues that even in the wildest expansions of the Commerce Clause, 
the cases all involved an individual or company which was proactively 
trying to engage in commerce.
  Here, we see the opposite. Individuals are being told that in order 
to go about their lives free from penalty, they must purchase a certain 
product.
  Folks, this is socialism. This is not freedom and liberty. The 
argument has never been made that the Federal Government can mandate 
that all citizens must purchase a certain product. My Democrat 
colleagues mandated it through this bill, through this law, that the 
President has demanded, ObamaCare. If Congress wants to promote the 
purchase of health insurance in a constitutional way, it should pass 
legislation which is constitutional under the original intent of the 
Commerce Clause that would allow individuals to buy coverage across 
State lines. This would adhere to the original intent of the 
Constitution and would allow people to buy insurance, health insurance, 
at a much lower price than they can today and would get a whole lot 
better products.
  Congresses, Presidents, court judges, every public official in this 
country swears an oath. I swore the oath when I was sworn into the 
United States Marine Corps in 1964.

                              {time}  1500

  I swore the same oath in 2007, when I came and stood behind this 
podium. In 2007, I swore to that oath, in 2009, and 2011. Every Member 
of this body swears to uphold and protect the Constitution against 
enemies both foreign and domestic.
  We have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution. A lot of those 
domestic enemies of the Constitution are wearing black robes and 
they're sitting on benches in Federal courts all across this land. They 
have violated their oath of office. Every Member of this body swears to 
uphold the Constitution. There's violation after violation that occurs 
right here on this floor.
  Think about it: if we don't have a solid foundation upon which to 
build all our laws, all of our society, then we have no foundation at 
all and the society is going to fall; it's going to fail. As we read in 
Proverbs, God says:

       There is a way that seems right in the eyes of man, but its 
     path is the way of death.

  It's going to be the death of this Nation.
  I hear colleagues, particularly on the other side, say the 
Constitution is a living and breathing document; the Supreme Court is 
the final arbiter of what is constitutional. And that, my friends, is 
not factual. The only arbiter of what is constitutional or not is the 
Constitution and what our Founding Fathers said about it.
  If we don't restore a constitutionally limited government, we're 
going to lose our freedom, we're going to lose our liberty. The bright 
and shining star of liberty that's been over this Nation for over 200 
years is upheld by six pillars. The first of those is a 
constitutionally limited government as our Founding Fathers meant it. 
The second one is the free enterprise system, uninhibited by taxes and 
regulation. The third is the rule of law, where everybody, every entity 
in this country is treated equal under the law. And certainly we're not 
being treated equally under the law today.
  The fourth is property rights, where people can own and control their 
property and government cannot interfere with that ownership. And if it 
does, if it takes it or devalues it, the Constitution says that they 
should be appropriately compensated for the loss or the devaluation of 
that private property.
  The fifth pillar that holds up that bright and shining star of 
liberty is the pillar of personal responsibility and accountability. 
And the middle pillar that holds up the center of the star of liberty 
is the pillar of morality. In fact, John Adams said our Constitution is 
written for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for 
the governing of any other. I hear colleagues say, well, you can't 
legislate morality. They are so wrong. Every law, every piece of 
legislation, no matter what level of government, is somebody's idea of 
what's right and what's wrong.
  Every law is legislating morality. Our Nation was founded on the 
premises of Biblical truths, on the Judeo-Christian principles that 
have made this country so great and have given us the liberty that we 
have as a Nation.
  But, friends, we are standing right on a precipice. We are staring 
down into a deep, dark chasm of socialism. And the question is, are we 
going to be pushed off, are we going to leap off and fall into that 
deep, dark chasm of socialism, where we're going to lose our freedom 
and liberty? Or are we going to turn around and march up the hill of 
liberty and regain for this Nation what our Founding Fathers fought and 
died and sacrificed so nobly for, that liberty? It's up to us.
  Right now, today, we are getting the kind of government that the 
American people have allowed or demanded. We cannot afford to do so 
anymore. We have to turn around and march up that hill of liberty and 
reclaim it and start rebuilding those six pillars of liberty that are 
being eroded. They're being eroded by Democrats and by Republicans, by 
conservatives and liberals alike.
  Going back to that first poster I put up here where God talks in 
Hosea 4:6, He says, ``My people are destroyed for a lack of 
knowledge.'' We have a tremendous lack of knowledge of how we've gotten 
away from the intent of the Constitution. Even lawyers and justices and 
judges don't have a concept of the original intent of the Constitution. 
In fact, in most law schools in this country, even in the course of 
constitutional law they do not teach the Constitution, they do not 
teach the original intent. They do not teach the principles that have 
made this country so powerful, so rich, so successful as a political 
experiment, the greatest of all of human history.
  What do they teach? They teach case law, where Justices in the 
Supreme Court have ruled on the constitutionality of a case and have 
ruled unconstitutionally. They should be removed from office because 
they're destroying our liberty, they're destroying

[[Page 18036]]

our freedom. And it's up to the American people to say, no, we're not 
going to put up with this anymore; we're going to make a change.
  You see, the most powerful political force in this Nation is embodied 
in the first three words of the U.S. Constitution: ``We the people.'' 
We the people can make a difference. I want to remind you of what one 
U.S. Senator, Everett Dirksen--former U.S. Senator--at one time said. 
He said when he feels the heat, he sees the light. What he means is if 
he's heading in one direction and enough of his constituents contact 
him and say, buster, you're heading in the wrong direction, if enough 
people contact him, because he's going to stand firm on the principle 
of his reelection, then he will begin to see the light.
  There are Members of this body and the one across the way in the U.S. 
Senate, as well as Presidents and our Presidential candidates, that 
need to feel the heat. They need to feel the heat of liberty. They need 
to feel the heat of ``we the people'' that demands that different kind 
of governance, demands going back to the original intent of the 
Constitution. Because if we don't, our children and our grandchildren 
are going to live in a socialistic state such as we see in Cuba and 
Venezuela, we saw in Communist China and the Soviet Union.
  We the people have to get up in arms and start building grass fires 
of grass-root support all over this country for candidates and for 
Members who are already elected and say we're not going to put up with 
this anymore.
  The only arbiter of the constitutionality is the Constitution and 
what was meant in the Constitution by those who wrote it. Now, I'm 
asked all the time, Paul, you weren't around then, how do you know what 
they meant? Our Founding Fathers didn't have video games and TV and the 
Internet. They wrote. They read. I encourage American citizens all over 
this country to read, read what our Founding Fathers said about the 
Constitution. Read what they meant by it. Because if we are destroyed 
by a lack of knowledge, if you turn that around, think about it, we're 
not destroyed with knowledge.
  Then you go on in Hosea 4:6, God says He's going to ignore our 
children, He's going to reject our children. The future of this Nation 
depends upon we the people standing firm and saying we're not going to 
put up with this anymore. We're going to go back to the original 
intent. We're going to do the hard work of knowing what our Founding 
Fathers said. We're going to do the hard work of demanding of our 
elected representatives that they stand by the principles, the 
foundations that have made this country so great, so powerful, so 
successful.

                              {time}  1510

  There are many Members of this body that need to feel the heat. There 
are many of the people in this body that need to see the door because 
they don't stand on the Constitution, they don't uphold the oath of 
office, they don't do what they have promised their constituents and 
the American people that they're going to do.
  There are judges all over this country, Federal judges, that need to 
be impeached and removed from office because they're not upholding the 
Constitution. They're not defending the Constitution. They're not doing 
what they promised that they would do. They're violating their oath of 
office.
  It has to stop, and the only way we're going to stop it is for we the 
people to stand up and say, no more. We're not going to elect anybody 
who's not going to uphold the Constitution in its original intent. 
We've got to get the hard work done of restoring those six principles, 
the six principles that have upheld that bright shining star of liberty 
over this country for so long.
  And I'm excited because we see grass roots all over this country 
beginning to rise up. We see a sleeping giant that's beginning to wake 
up and stretch its arms and legs and beginning to walk. The press calls 
it the Tea Party. Well, there's not a Tea Party. There are many tea 
parties. There's FreedomWorks, there's Americans for Prosperity. There 
are groups, grass-roots groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America 
and Right to Work and other groups that believe in the Constitution.
  We're beginning to see the sleeping giant of we the people waking up. 
It's time to not only wake up and stretch our arms and legs and to 
walk, but we've got to run. We've got to do the hard work of re-
establishing liberty in this country.
  We're losing our liberty, friends, and we're going to lose it all. 
We're standing on that precipice staring down in that deep, dark chasm 
of socialism. Are we going to allow ourselves to be pushed off by 
courts, by Congresses, by Presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike?
  Or are we going to turn around as a people and demand liberty and 
start marching up that hill of liberty? It's going to be a mountain 
climb, but we can do it.
  I'm excited because I see that great sleeping giant, the most 
powerful political force in America, embodied in those first three 
words of the U.S. Constitution, We the People. Our Founding Fathers 
believed in we the people. That's the reason, when they wrote the 
document they put the letters in such large script, much, much larger, 
probably four or five times larger than the rest of the text in the 
document, because we the people is the key, that force of we the 
people.
  So the question I have to ask today, Are we going to jump or be 
forced down into that deep, dark chasm of socialism, or are we going to 
be a free people? Are we going to demand the liberty?
  It's up to each and every freedom-loving citizen in this country 
today to demand a different kind of governance. I believe we can do it, 
I believe we will do it because we the people love liberty in America. 
And I'm trusting in we the people to do the right thing and demand 
constitutional limited government at all levels.
  God bless you, and God bless America.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________