Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 162 (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 162 (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H12009-H12015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONSTITUTIONAL CHECKS AND BALANCES

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McNerney). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here with
my colleagues, the members of the class of 2006, and I'm going to defer
to my colleague from Kentucky who brought an initiative forward and one
that we are excited about talking about. It's something that the
American people should be excited about talking about. It's a refresher
course and, I guess, to bring to the forefront again the most important
document in this country, the Constitution.

{time} 1730

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).
Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Minnesota, the
distinguished president of our class, for yielding and thank him for
the superb job he has done in leading us through this wonderful year
that we are spending as new Members of Congress.
I want to start this segment by actually reading the first few words
of the Constitution of the United States because too often I find that,
as I go around the country and go around my district, the people have
lost sight and I think many Members of Congress have lost sight of
exactly what the Founding Fathers did 220 years ago. I think we are all
familiar with the preamble of the Constitution, and it starts with
those wonderful words ``We the people,'' those incredible words that
actually go to the heart of what we are about as a democracy:
``We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.''
Now, following those words, following that brief preamble, it says in
article I, section 1: ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a
Senate and House of Representatives.''
I think it's amazing to think back to what was going on in those
formative years of our Republic in 1787. The country had just rebelled
against a monarch in England, and when they were establishing a
government that would reflect the hopes and dreams of the people who
had gone through that incredible war of revolution against England,
they decided to create a government in which the ultimate power would
rest in the people. That's why they said at beginning of the preamble,
``We the people.'' They created in article I the representative body of
government that we sit in today. They did that because they didn't want
one person being the decider of everything that affected their lives.
They wanted to vest the power to govern in themselves through their
representatives in Congress.
And so we sit here as successors to that incredible legacy. And it is
not only our power to do that vested by the Constitution in article I;
it is our responsibility. We have an obligation to govern on behalf of
our citizens, ``we the people,'' as reflected in our representation
here.
I think those of us who were elected for the first time last November
know that, yes, we were elected partially because of the war in Iraq,
but we were also elected because the people of the country decided that
they really wanted to make sure their voice was heard in Washington.
They thought their voice was being ignored. They said this is our
government. We are going to change it by sending people there who will
listen to us and will put our desires into action through the
legislative process.
So I thought it would be wonderful to call attention to the fact that
article I does impose, again, not just these powers, but it also
imposes responsibilities. And that's what we came here to do, and we
recognize that. We want everyone in Congress, both parties, to share in
this acknowledgment of what our responsibilities are under the
Constitution. I am so proud to have with me tonight and so proud to
serve with wonderful people who are committed to the same ideals.
I would like to recognize Betty Sutton from Ohio, one of our
wonderful new Members, to elaborate on article I and what we are doing
to realize and to fulfill our responsibilities under article I.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for his introduction here and I
thank you for your leadership. The gentleman from Kentucky is taking
us, hopefully, on what will be a bipartisan effort to restore the
responsibilities of this Congress has under article I and just sort of
bring that back to the forefront because checks and balances are very
important in this government. I also want to commend the leadership of
our president, Tim Walz, the gentleman from Minnesota, who is an
outspoken advocate for the people that he represents, and, frankly,
that's what article I is all about.
As you point out, when we were elected to Congress, we were elected
to represent the people of our districts. Not lobbyists on K Street and
not operatives at the White House or even the President himself. Our
responsibility and our loyalty are to the Americans, the people, first
and foremost, who sent us here. That means we have to do the job that
they asked us to do. And that job is important, and we know exactly
what that job is because article I in some ways is a job description.
As you point out, it's not about really just authority; it's about
responsibilities. Nowhere in that job description in article I does it
say we have to protect egos or political interests of the executive
branch. Nowhere does it say that we have to do only things that the
President tells us to do. And nowhere in that job description does it
say that Congress answers to anyone but the American people.
There has sort of been a slope here where past Congresses have ceded
legislative power to the executive branch, and, frankly, I believe that
when that happens, Congress is falling down on their job. I am really
glad that we are here tonight to reinvigorate and rededicate ourselves
to make sure that we are fulfilling our obligations and our function
under article I because it is vitally important to so many issues, from
the war in Iraq to all these judiciary issues.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank my colleague. She has expressed it very well,
and that is exactly what I know she has done in our 10 months here.
It also gives me great pleasure to recognize our colleague, another
new Member from the great State of Florida, Congressman Klein, and I
know he has some thoughts on this issue as well.
Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I would like to thank the gentleman from
Kentucky and all of my colleagues here in our freshman class. We all
ran in these difficult elections almost a year ago, but I think the
very strong message that came out of all of us coming to Washington was
a very strong message from back home, and that is the responsibilities,
as was suggested by our colleagues, that we all know, from our civics
classes back in high school and elementary school, that the beauty and
the strength of the United States and our democracy is all about checks
and balances. It's what makes our system a democracy. We can look at
other models in Europe and Asia and around the world and dictatorships
and things like that, but the strength of what works in this country is
checks and balances.
What we believe is going on and the reason this emphasis on article I
is so important and for our public and the people in this country to
jump on this and work with us and recognize this and talk about it is
because there has been a falling down of one side. We're out of
balance. There are three legs to the stool. Each one has a specific set
of authority. The judges, the judiciary, interpret. The legislature,
that is, the Congress, has the authority to make the laws. And the
executive has certain authority into executing and following and,
through the agencies, doing certain things. But when one branch gets
out of whack, it means the power is coming from another branch. This
isn't about personal power. This is about the strength of our
democracy. That is the exciting piece here.

[[Page H12010]]

So this check and balance is not about President Bush, or any
President. It's not about anybody in particular because there are
future and past leaders that have all tried to exercise in certain
ways. This is about where we are going in the future. I think as the
gentlewoman from Ohio has already correctly mentioned, there has been a
failure over the last number of years in the legislative branch, the
Congress, in fighting back and asserting itself in terms of oversight
and accountability and follow-through to make sure that the executive
branch, the President and the executive branch, are doing what they are
supposed to do, whether it is executing the war in Iraq and making sure
that billions of dollars are not flowing out without any follow-up,
whether it is an Attorney General that may not have necessarily been
following some of the laws as we understand them or at least having the
opportunity to ask the questions and not be stonewalled by the
executive branch. This is what it's all about. It is a balance. It's a
beautiful thing, truly, but it has got to work.
As the gentleman from Kentucky has correctly stated, and I thank him
for bringing up in our discussion article I, this conversation that is
going to happen throughout our country for the next couple of months
is, let's make sure Congress does its job, let's limit the executive
branch to do what it has to do, and make sure that our system works in
its form of accountability that we have.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman.
I would now like to recognize another colleague, another member of
the freshman class and the first president of our class and also a
member with me on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where
I think we perform one of the major powers and responsibilities that
article I vests in the Congress: the function of oversight.
Mr. HODES. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Yarmuth, let me start by saying how proud I am to stand with my
colleagues, other new Members of the class of 2006, to talk about an
initiative which you began, the article I initiative, to talk about
reasserting the constitutional balance of power in Washington.
For me, in coming to Congress as a new Member of this House from New
Hampshire, it was absolutely fundamental to what I talked about in my
campaign that the people of New Hampshire sent me to Congress to
restore accountability, integrity, and oversight to government. They
sent me here because what I said to them and what we now see is that
Congress was a broken branch. Congress had not been exercising its
oversight and accountability functions. And when Congress does not
exercise its important power, its important right, its important
obligation to the people to exercise oversight and accountability over
the executive branch and other branches of government, things get
unbalanced. It was that sense of checks and balances that our Founding
Fathers put into the Constitution, and they put it in there for a
reason.
They won a Revolutionary War against an empire, the British empire,
with an imperial ruler at the top, the King of England. We wanted to
make sure that we had a different form of government; that we had a
form of government where the people were the top dog in the fight; that
the ruler would never become imperial. That is why we have a President,
we have a Congress which is divided between the House and the Senate.
In article I, section 1, our founders were very clear. They said,
``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives.'' What I saw and many of us saw when we ran was a
President who was abusing presidential power in an unprecedented way.
This wasn't a matter of parties. It was this President abusing power in
an unprecedented way, and it could have happened whatever party that
President was in, but this is what we saw, and we ran.
The article I initiative, which you began, which we have joined, and
which we are spreading, seeks to heighten the public consciousness of
the importance of checks and balances in our system. As newly elected
Democratic Members of Congress, we feel with particular importance the
obligation we have to reassert the power that the Founding Fathers
wisely gave to Congress. When we came, we took an oath of office to
protect and defend and uphold the Constitution. Article I is the first
article, and it is the first article for a reason. And we are well on
our way as we have begun to exercise oversight throughout Congress with
hundreds of hearings held in this 110th Congress on many issues and
especially the war in Iraq and what has happened with this President
and this administration. In the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, we have held oversight hearings about administration
interference with the work of GSA, the folks who deal with Federal
buildings, turning it into an arm of politics; administration
interference with science at NASA; administration incompetence with
FEMA, delivering formaldehyde-filled trailers to the victims of
Katrina; incompetence and mismanagement by the State Department,
failing to exercise oversight over contractors in Iraq, the Blackwater
scandal that is beginning to emerge now. We have been holding the
hearings that constitute the function of Congress not just to make the
law but to exercise the oversight that keeps things in checks and
balances.
I am delighted to be with you tonight. We are going to talk about
numbers of ways in which we are reasserting Congress' power and taking
steps to bring the people back to the People's House and serve the
interests of the American people.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes).
And now, Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to introduce one of
our more illustrious new Members, Mr. Hall from New York, who has done
a great deal in his term of office to uphold article I.
Mr. HALL of New York. Thank you so much, Congressman, for yielding.
I am proud to join my fellow new Members of the class of 2006.
Freshmen, new Members, whatever you want to call us, I am really
honored to be here with all of you and to tell you, speaking of
oversight, about my trip this last weekend to Iraq. I think it's one of
the most important functions the Constitution gives to Congress, the
power, the sole power, to make war and to fund that war should it
decide that it needs to happen.

{time} 1745

I flew out on a congressional delegation that was led by our fellow
classmate, Dave Loebsack, Congressman of Iowa. And after a few hours of
sleep in Kuwait, we were flown in by a C-130 to Balad Airbase in Iraq.
On the way in, the plane's crew deployed flares against a perceived
threat from the ground. I never found out exactly what they saw, but
they fired flares for protection.
We got a tour of the base and the Air Force Theater Hospital there.
We spent a night in the Green Zone. I slept in a guest room in one of
the pool houses by one of Saddam's palaces, with a big Olympic swimming
pool and gold fixtures and a marble bathroom that the guesthouse had.
And I understand this is a subject of some friction with the Iraqis who
feel that after 4 years we should have handed over the national palaces
to the Iraqi people rather than inhabiting them ourselves, but that's
another subject.
I have good news and I have not so good news. The good news that I
first perceived on my trip is that, first of all, I cannot state
strongly enough my admiration and respect for our Army, Navy, Air Force
and Marine personnel. Officers, medical teams, enlisted men and women,
all are displaying creativity, commitment and a work ethic that should
make all of us proud, even when they're carrying out duties other than
they were trained for, such as an artillery officer doing civil affairs
or training Iraqi police. They are more than up to the mission.
The other good news is the money that we and our fellows here in
Congress voted for MRAPs was definitely money well spent. We saw a
picture of a Cougar MRAP that was hit by such a powerful explosive that
it blew it up 25 feet or so into the air, hooked the utility lines, and
brought them down with it as it landed upside down. Four soldiers
inside that MRAP, two of them

[[Page H12011]]

walked away; the other two spent a night in the hospital with
relatively minor injuries and returned to their units. Their commander
told us that in any other vehicle all four would have been fatalities.
Now for the bad news. We have a lot of other vehicles. We were shown
a huge parking lot. Imagine the biggest used car lot that you ever saw
full of Humvees, Bradley vehicles, tanks, trucks, all kinds of vehicles
that had been hit by IEDs. Some, including Abrams tanks, looked like
they had been opened up by a can opener and had metal inside that had
melted and resolidified. Tires, treads, electronics and other useable
parts were being salvaged, and the twisted steel that was left sold for
scrap to Kuwait.
Some vehicles were deemed fit for repair, but most of what we saw was
clearly far beyond repair. The lot we looked at represented thousands
of American casualties and billions of taxpayer dollars. We were not,
by the way, allowed to take photographs of it.
In the Green Zone, the most heavily guarded part of Baghdad, one of
the safest, supposedly, parts of Baghdad, we were shown the concrete
shelters every couple of hundred feet and warned to duck inside one of
these shelters if an alarm sounded, because just the week before, two
American troops were killed by mortar fire in the Green Zone. Even
sleeping in a guest room in Saddam's pool house, with the Olympic
swimming pool and gold fixtures, we had to be ready to duck and cover.
We had meetings with Ambassador Ryan Crocker, General Petraeus,
briefings by the intelligence staff. And my synopsis of the
conversations goes like this: Ambassador Crocker said, ``the Maliki
government is somewhere between challenged and dysfunctional.''
I asked repeatedly about what progress is being made toward
restoration of clean drinking water, sewer service, and uninterrupted
electrical supply. The answers from all of our briefers were vague. And
current estimates are that electricity is only on 2 to 3 hours in
Baghdad, maybe 12 hours a day in Ramadi or the Shia-controlled south.
The next day we got to go to what they called the safest part of the
country, which is Ramadi in Anbar province. Surprise; the last couple
of months there has been a decrease in violence there as what they call
the Anbar awakening happens with the sheiks deciding they're going to
side with us rather than siding with the terrorists.
Nonetheless, as we rode in the helicopter to the safe part of the
country, we flew low and fast, close to the deck, with two .50 caliber
machine guns out each of the front doors, and a couple of times they
fired bursts of automatic weapons fire. And afterwards I asked what it
was for, and the gunners said they were clearing intersections. I
presume that means firing in front of the lines of vehicles to make
them stop and not drive directly underneath us.
When we entered the marketplace to see the new, safe Ramadi market
and the new business center, the small business center that had opened,
we were driven there in a Cougar MRAP and told to wear our body armor
and our helmets while we were inside the MRAP. And when we took them
off and walked around the marketplace, we were surrounded at all times
by a ring of dozens of soldiers carrying automatic weapons, and they
were wearing their helmets and their body armor. So, if that's the safe
part of Iraq, I wonder what the dangerous part is.
On the way home we stopped in Ramstein, Germany, launched to a
medical center, visited some of our troops. I saw one of my
constituents there and had my picture taken with him, and interrupted
his lunch to shake his hand and thank him for his service.
There were several Romanians there who were injured, a number of
Americans, all of whom from Iraq were hurt in Baghdad, attacked in
Baghdad, and then there was one attacked or wounded in Afghanistan.
Their spirits, in general, were great, and the medical staff was
terrific. I can't say enough about our medical core either. And they
really appreciate the visits. They really appreciate the donations from
home that are coming from individuals, from school kids, from veterans
groups and from corporations of everything from fleece and coats and
underwear and toothbrushes, anything you might need, duffel bags,
because these are soldiers evacuated from the point where they were
wounded in the field by helicopter to Balad and then stabilized and
sent off to Germany.
So, there are good things, but there are also enough negative things
going on there so that I returned with the same conclusion that I went
there suspecting, which is that the $200 billion more that we're being
asked for by President Bush for Iraq, based on the presumption that the
Maliki government, which our own ambassador describes is dysfunctional,
will be up to the task of resolving and reconciling the differences
between the different sects is wishful thinking; and that after a year
and another $200 billion, where will we be? What kind of guarantee,
what kind of even probability do we have of a stable country to leave
behind? If the sheiks in Anbar can get together, if the mullahs in the
south, the Shia south can get together, if the Kurds in the north can
get together and stop attacking Turkey long enough to have the country
that they've always wanted, then perhaps we can bring our troops home
and get to business spending that money here on things that Americans,
at least in my district, are telling me they need built, infrastructure
they need repaired, schools that they need to be improved, and other
things that constitute Nation building here at home.
That is the short version of my report. I thank you so much for
letting me share that with you.
Mr. YARMUTH. I want to thank my colleague.
Before I introduce another one of our esteemed colleagues from the
class of 2006, when you talk about your observations after having gone
to Iraq, and many of our colleagues have gone, sometimes I think people
get the impression that we're just acting like any other pundit talking
on television. But, in fact, what you're doing and what the other
Members of our body have done when they go to Iraq is to fulfill their
responsibilities under article I. Because article I says that Congress
shall have the power to provide for the common defense, it says to
raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a Navy, to make rules
for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, and so
forth, to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining, this is the
militia. But all of these powers and responsibilities are given to the
Congress not just to say okay to the President, the Commander in Chief,
but to make the decisions as to what the appropriate levels of support
for those various responsibilities are.
So when we talk about going to Iraq to assess the situation there, to
talk to our troops, that is not just to go for a matter of curiosity or
journalistic curiosity, it's actually to fulfill our responsibilities
because we are responsible to make decisions as to what appropriate
levels of support are.
And with that, I would like to call on my distinguished colleague
from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).
Mr. ELLISON. Well, my colleagues, let me thank you again for this
excellent dialogue.
We have to, as the difference makers in this 110th Congress, tell the
people what's going on, what we're here for, and to reclaim the
Congress as a co-equal branch of government articulated in article I, a
co-equal branch of government that resides and has all legislative
powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United
States and shall consist of the Senate and the House of
Representatives.
And so as I heard my colleague, Mr. John Hall, articulate his trip to
Iraq, I was forced to reflect upon my own. And I didn't go there out of
an idle curiosity seeker, a person trying to go on an interesting trip,
but as somebody who is going to be called upon to execute a vote, to
push a button, red or green or otherwise, as to monies that will be
sent forth and as to other business that will be happening in Iraq.
That's our job, we claim it, we do not abdicate it, and it would be
wrong and a dereliction of our duty to do otherwise.
So, let me commend you and everybody who has gone to that place where
our constituents, some of them have spent up to 18 months at a time as
they face extended deployments.
And I also want you to know that I sat down at a table with young
people

[[Page H12012]]

from my district in Minnesota where we ate lunch. I was struck by the
fact that wherever they go, they've got these big old guns that they
carry with them, everybody. It's like a wallet, but it probably weighs
quite a bit more than that. And that's just the lives that they lead.
But they distinguish themselves and make us proud by their courage. And
it is political authority, politicians like us that make decisions
whether they stay or whether they go. So we had better at least spend a
little bit of time there with them, and we had better at least try to
get in their shoes and identify with what they're going through just a
little bit and feel that 130-degree heat that they're in every single
day and feel the dust and sand under their feet and the hum of those
helicopters. I'm sure you were humming around in those Black Hawks with
the windows out and the machine guns on either side, strapped in in
four places and feeling the heat of those propellers as the air hits
against your helmet. It's the kind of experience that we go through so
that we can have some real sympathy and empathy with the people who we
are charged to represent. So, hats off to you, Congressman. I
appreciate it.
I'm not going to talk long because I love the switching around that
we do. But I just want to make one other point as we look at article I
and we reclaim and assert our responsibility under the Constitution as
Congress. It is also important to understand that we have asserted our
authority in the area of promoting working-class prosperity for people.
I am so proud that one of the things we did for the first time in 9
years is raised the minimum wage, Mr. Speaker. The hardest working
people in America getting paid the least got a raise under this
Congress. And I don't want people to make that into any kind of a small
matter. Thousands and thousands of Americans benefited by raising the
minimum wage for the first time in 9 years. I'm talking about the folks
that clean the bedpans, mop the floors, sit in those cold or hot
parking booths all across this country and really do the tough, tough
work, getting paid not much of nothing. And you know that if you make
minimum wage, basically, if your employer can pay you less, they
probably would. So what we did is we raised that minimum wage so people
can have a little bit better of a life. So now instead of moms having
to tell kids, ``Honey, you can't go on that class trip,'' ``Honey,
you're going to have to wear those sneakers a few months longer,'' now,
instead of dad saying, ``No, son, you can't sign up for baseball,'' or,
``Yes, we're having macaroni and cheese again,'' now they can say,
``No, we're going to do a little better this time. We're going to make
your life a little better. We're going to make your quality of life a
little better.''
So I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I'm so proud of my
colleagues and this whole 110th Congress to be able to do a little bit
better for the hardest working Americans in our country.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman. And it's interesting because,
again, you can find a foundation for all these things we're doing in
these very words in article I, because one of our responsibilities is
to provide for the general welfare. And when we're talking about the
minimum wage, we're talking about the general welfare of the people.
I would like to return to our distinguished president, who has a
distinguished military record of his own, since we've been talking
about our efforts with regard to Iraq and the military.
Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Well, I thank the gentleman. And I thank the
gentleman from New York for his clear testimony and for fulfilling his
obligation, not only as a Congressman, but as a citizen, to ask the
hard questions. When we send our soldiers and our warriors into harm's
way, it's all of our responsibility to ask, is this the right mission?
Are they being provided for with the right equipment? Are we doing
everything necessary to ensure that that's happening?
And quite honestly, the problem around here up until January of this
year was that people were being told that it was unpatriotic, it wasn't
right to question those things because the President, under his
administration, was determining that he was the unitary executive, he
was the decider. Now, that's the President's right, that's this
President's right or any right, I guess, to determine how they're going
to look at that.
The foundational principles, though, of this country don't let us
just get to pick and choose. We go back to the document that the
gentleman from Kentucky keeps referring to. The Constitution of the
United States clearly lays out for us, and I think it's kind of
interesting and maybe even critical for us, it might be the teacher in
me that goes back to this, I have been rereading a book on the
Constitutional Convention by two professors from Georgia that take
James Madison's notes about what was happening at that time and that
summer when they were thinking how they were going to form this
government.

{time} 1800

When the President talks about he doesn't need 435 commanders in the
field or whatever, what he does need to understand is that these 435
Members were the very first piece of decision-making that went into
that convention.
I would like to quote a little bit if I could from this, to my
colleagues and to you, Mr. Speaker, about what was going through their
minds as they were formulating this and what our responsibilities as
article 1 is. Keep in mind that they met on May 30, and on June 1, the
first piece of legislation once they got a quorum and they decided they
were going to go with a Federal or national government, here are some
of the notes that were compiled. Here is Mr. Mason.
Mr. Mason argued strongly for an election of the larger branch by the
people. It was going to be the grand depository of the democratic
principles of the people. It was, so to speak, to be our House of
Commons. It ought to know and sympathize with every part of the people.
It ought to therefore not only be taken from different parts of the
whole, but also from different districts of the larger members, which
had several instances, particularly in Virginia, different interests of
views arising from differences of produce, differences of habit, all
kinds of differences.
Mr. Madison considered the popular election of one branch of the
national legislature as essential to a free government. He thought,
too, that the great fabric to be raised would be more stable and
durable if it should rest on the solid foundation of the people
themselves and their elected representatives as the pillars. They went
on to formulate how they were going to do that and have the debate of
who should elect the Senate and how those things should happen. But
there was no doubt in anyone's mind by the framers of this government
about where the pillar and where that foundation should lay.
I think it is interesting, then, to take a look at this of when they
talked about the next branch, when they started talking about the
executive branch. On June 1, the delegates began considering the
structure of the executive. They were not sure yet what duties would
fall to the executive or even whether a single person would hold that
position. The major issue that faced them was one of balance. If the
executive branch was too strong and independent, many delegates feared
it might result in another monarchy like the ones they had recently
revolted from. But if the executive was too weak and depended solely on
the legislature, it might be ineffective. Thus, checks and balances
were key to this.
In going through and looking at these, the different issues that are
coming up or the clauses that went into this, it was apparent from the
very beginning that the Founders of this Nation clearly understood
that. As we said earlier, and my colleagues each said, this isn't about
a piece of legislation. This is a platform or a framework to get back
to where this country came from. This isn't about President Bush. This
is about all subsequent Presidents. And so be it, be that Democratic,
Republican or whatever it would be, that those individuals still must
fall within this framework.
I believe, and I think my colleagues that are here tonight believe,
that that was one of the motivating factors for sending many of us here
almost a year ago to the day. It wasn't just ideology. It was about the
framework of the genius that went into the Constitution

[[Page H12013]]

and the thought processes that formed that.
So in listening to this and listening to Mr. Hall describe his trip
to Iraq, he is fulfilling his constitutional duties as an elected
official and fulfilling the things that we know are necessary. I would
go back to talking about this MRAP. If you remember, without the
oversight, it was the administration that sent our soldiers with the
army that we had, not the one that we would want. No one asked about
body armor. No one asked about up-armored Humvees. Those were the
questions that should have been asked in this chamber. But they were
told, no, go along with the executive.
Well, article I is about saying, we will never just go along because
that is not our duty. I am pleased to see each of my colleagues here. I
know the passion that each of them feel for this issue is a passion for
this great Nation. It is a passion for the founding principles. It is
not a revisionist history. It is not a power grab. It is functional
government that delivers for its people. That is what we need to get
back to.
With that, I would like to, if I could, yield to the gentlewoman from
Ohio.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman. What great points, and thank you
for reading that because we can all use sort of that reminder that the
Founding Fathers recognized the dangers of an imperial Presidency where
edicts from the White House might carry more weight than laws passed in
Congress or rulings handed down by the court. And that is what we are
here to do, to get things back in balance.
Unfortunately, as we have sort of expressed earlier, some of us, that
the White House at present has routinely refused to provide information
to the Congress. As the gentleman from Minnesota points out, that is
not what was envisioned when our Founding Fathers put together the
fantastic, amazing, living document that we are here today to reclaim.
Earlier this month, I heard testimony from executive branch witnesses
that they were refusing to answer questions before Congress on whether
or not there is corruption in the Iraqi Government. We hear this right
after we hear our distinguished colleague from New York talking so
eloquently about what he saw and what he witnessed. And we hear about
our responsibility to come forth with the knowledge that we gain when
we go to Iraq and I, too, have visited Iraq. We hear witnesses come in,
though, from the administration when you start to ask questions about
corruption that may be going on in that country, where we have paid,
those of us here, the American soldiers, the troops, the price that
they have paid. You speak so eloquently of them, Congressman Hall, and
their dedication and their heart. I have to tell you, they are
breathtaking to watch in action. But we have to question if money is
missing. We have to question when equipment is missing because the
troops pay a price. The American people are paying a price for what we
are doing in Iraq.
At any rate, the reality of an administration that instead of
providing information so that we can investigate, they stonewalled
providing information and in that case and in so many other cases, and
I am sure others are going to mention them, it is our responsibility to
ask the questions, to get the information and make sure that we make
policies that are worthy of those soldiers and are worthy of the
American people.
I am so proud to be here with you all tonight, the members of the
freshman class as we begin this campaign to reclaim our responsibility.
Before I yield back, I just want to mention one thing that was
striking. The gentleman from Minnesota mentioned that the President has
rights under article II. But I think that we would all be better served
that rather than thinking of the President having rights, he should
think of them as responsibilities, because they are not personal
rights. It is a job description for him, too, in article II.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank my distinguished colleague from Ohio. It is kind
of interesting, because since we are going back to the kind of
legislative history of the Constitution, in the Federalist Papers which
do constitute, I guess, whatever official legislative history there
was, one of the things that James Madison wrote in article number 51
was, he said, ``But the great security against a gradual concentration
of the several powers in the same department'' which would be the
executive or the Congress ``consists in giving to those who administer
each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives
to resist encroachments of the others.''
So when you talk about the efforts of the White House, in this
particular case, to withhold information that the Senate requires, and
we issued subpoenas, which would be our constitutional means of
requiring the information to resist the encroachments of the other
branch of government, we have been stonewalled on a number of
occasions. And this is the type of activity that the Founding Fathers
anticipated. They gave us the constitutional means to resist those
encroachments. We need to continue to recognize those and to use them
whenever we have to.
Now, my colleague from Florida has been standing there for quite a
while.
Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, the gentleman from Kentucky and the
gentleman from Minnesota. It was great. It reminded me of being back in
school of reading the Federalist Papers and those kind of things. But
for those folks listening in this room and around the country, I think
we all understand very clearly this is a living, breathing document,
the Constitution. It has changed over the years, not the language, but
the belief, but the fundamental goals and the values behind it are all
the same. I think when I speak to people back in Florida, and they say
to me, ``Get control over the problems in Iraq,'' whether that is
changing the policy or making sure that the armor is there and that our
military is properly supplied. ``What happened in Katrina? How could
our government, when we saw those pictures on TV, how would could this
be the United States?'' We look at third-world countries around the
world and surely we go and support them, and yet in our own cities we
saw the failure of the government. And unfortunately, at that time,
very little ``buck stops here'' kind of response. People died
unfortunately, billions of dollars in property loss, and just the
bruising of the American psyche, not to mention the loss of personal
lives in New Orleans and other places. It was so wrong on so many
levels. I think that hurt America. But the key in what our
responsibility is, Members of Congress and Americans together, is to
say, let's learn from the errors. Let's learn from our mistakes. That
is where the accountability, the balance of power, asking the
questions, getting the answers, learning from those mistakes, whether
it is in Iraq and finding out where those billions of dollars of cash
have gone so it doesn't happen again, whether it is foreign policy or
whether it is policy that affects everything in this country. We saw a
bridge collapse. Are we looking at all the bridges in the United States
to make sure that our infrastructure is safe?
Mr. Ellison obviously is deeply involved and truly has been a great
leader and hero to your community because you obviously knew exactly
what needed to be done there. But these are the questions. Where is
America today? And the only way we are going to continue to be this
great country, this beacon around the world, is to be able to have a
thriving democracy that doesn't let one end of the spectrum, in this
case the executive branch, run over and not allow the Members of
Congress and the American people to ask the questions, get the answers,
learn and move forward in a very, very positive way, which is the
American value that we all have.
Americans can do anything they want. We know that. But you can't have
Washington stopping it. Unfortunately, until this most recent Congress
of which we are all privileged to be a part, we had year after year
after year where Congress unfortunately didn't do its job in many of
our opinions. I am very proud to say that we are making many of the
right moves here. We have a lot more work to do. Let's make no mistake
about it. Americans demand and expect us to do our job, to do it with
fervor and excitement and make sure we correct some of these mistakes
and move forward.
But we need help from the executive branch. They have to realize
there are limits to those responsibilities. There are no personal
issues here, but responsibilities of moving this country ahead.

[[Page H12014]]

If everyone will get out of their corner a little bit and come
together, I think we can solve all these problems and do it in a very
positive way.
Mr. YARMUTH. I would like to recognize my colleague from New
Hampshire with a question. And that is, we are about to engage in a
fairly contentious series of votes concerning appropriations measures.
According to article I, section 8, one of the most important powers
that this Congress has is the power of the purse. As a matter of fact,
in another Federalist Paper, number 58, James Madison said that, ``This
power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and
effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate
representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress from every
grievance, and from carrying into effect every just and salutary
measure.''
As we look forward to our deliberations and our discussions of the
appropriations process, I would like the gentleman from New Hampshire
to discuss our responsibilities in that regard.
Mr. HODES. Thank you. As I have listened to the colloquy we have had
here on the floor today in this Chamber where such important issues of
war and peace, spending, raising revenue are debated on a daily basis
now and thinking about the beginnings of the country, and you have
asked about the questions coming up about appropriations, and we have
had passed numerous appropriations bills. I think we have passed 12
here in the House of Representatives. The Senate has not yet acted on
all of them, because, of course, once we pass the appropriations bills,
and they must originate under the Constitution here in the House of
Representatives, they go to the Senate. The Senate has to pass them.
They come back and forth and they go up to the President. Of course the
President has now threatened a veto on the spending necessary to run
the Federal Government, to run the program for health and human
services, to educate our kids, to heal the sick, all the programs that
we have in the Federal Government, he has threatened to veto. And then
if he vetoes a bill as we saw with the SCHIP bill, it will come back
here where Congress will have the power to vote to override that veto
and put it into law despite what the President says. All those powers
and all the debates arise out of what my colleague from Florida noted
was a living, breathing document. This great democracy of ours comes
down to the words and the spirit that are embodied in the Constitution
of the United States
Many Americans around the country really have lost sight of the
humble beginnings of the country and the need for the powers in article
I.

{time} 1815

We were a ragtag country, mostly woodsmen and woodswomen that were
fighting against this imperial monarchy. We won a revolution and were
then immediately faced with terrible challenges. We had no Navy. We had
no commerce. Our Army was weak because we had just been through a
revolution. We didn't have much money. We had no trade. We had few
ambassadors. We had very few friends. It was the Constitution that had
to lay out all the powers that would serve as the basis for what is now
a $1 trillion a year appropriation in terms of what the Federal
Government raises and spends, or borrows and spends in past Congresses.
The challenges we faced coming in here, we are faced with fiscal
irresponsibility, in which Congress was borrowing and spending. In
fact, the war in Iraq is a perfect example. That war, which is now
suggested will cost $2.4 trillion when all is said and done and all is
added up, has been done with borrowing. It has been done by putting it
on the backs of our children and our grandchildren. Fiscal
irresponsibility. Just waste of taxpayer money, which we were sent here
to deal with.
The Constitution lays out clearly that it is Congress's duty to lay
and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, words these days that
don't mean very much. They are fancy, old-fashioned words. We have got
to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general
welfare. We are allowed in Congress to borrow money on the credit of
the United States because it was very important at the very beginning
of the Nation that this government be given the power to deal
commercially and get the money it needed in a responsible way to run
the affairs of the country. But it was up to Congress to appropriate
the money to run the programs, provide for the common defense and
general welfare.
Today, we are faced with a tough situation and it will probably take
us all through the fall as we deal with the President, who has
threatened to veto the responsible measures that we, in Congress,
coming together as voices of the people, have decided are necessary to
run this country. It is up to Congress, really, to say what those
programs should be because that is the power the Constitution gives us.
Mr. Speaker, I heard with great interest the quotes from Madison, the
quotes in the book. There is another quote from Madison that really
talks about why Congress is the place that provides for the welfare and
defense of the country. Madison wrote in Federalist Papers No. 52, and
the words, it's a little old-fashioned, but folks will get it, ``As it
is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a
common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that
the branch of it under consideration,'' the Congress, ``should have an
immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people''.
In other words, it was clear from the founding of this Nation that this
body, this hall, this place where we stand before there was C-SPAN,
before there was television, this place is the place of the people.
The 435 people who gather here, each representing 650,000 or so
people of the United States, are the folks who, in what I have
described to my constituents as the hurly-burly of democracy, come
together to decide how things should be governed, what kind of money do
we need, and how are we going to spend it.
So that is what we are going to be seeing this fall play out. We
don't know how it will end, where it is going to go. The Senate will
have a role, certainly the President has a role. But so far it appears
that with this President, the role now, unlike the past 6 years of the
109th, 108th, 107th, which, with all due respect for my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle, the Republicans, were Republican-dominated
Congresses where the veto word was never mentioned, all of the sudden
the President has now decided that it is time to veto almost everything
that is coming out of Congress. He vetoed SCHIP, a bill to ensure 10
million of our neediest children for health care. Vetoed. We are going
to send it back. Threatened vetoes for our appropriations bills to run
the Federal Government. He is going to send them back.
This is a new light, apparently, that has dawned on this President,
that suddenly a Democratic Congress sending him legislation is all of a
sudden going to be subject to vetoes. With this initiative, we are here
to reassert the importance, the power, the responsibility of this
Congress to act for the people who sent us here.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire. I would like
to yield to the gentleman from New York, with this segue; that we all
come from different parts of the country. Isn't it amazing that the
Constitutional Convention in its wisdom, the Founding Fathers, I think
recognized that even if you had an all-powerful executive, that person,
that man or woman could never know the needs and the priorities of
every nook and cranny of the country and that you coming from New York
or from New Hampshire or Ohio or Florida would all assimilate all of
our needs and priorities into a budget and a priority list for the
Nation. That is why he vested this type of power in the Congress and
not in the executive branch.
Mr. HALL of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is true
that all of our areas and our districts around the country are
different in many ways, but it is also true that they are the same, and
our people have the same needs in many ways.
The gentleman from Florida talked about Hurricane Katrina. The
gentleman from Minnesota mentioned the trailers that FEMA didn't know
were contaminated with formaldehyde. Two weeks ago, in my district, the
town of Deer Park discovered they had lead contamination in their
highway department building and their town hall

[[Page H12015]]

that was measured at 5,000-plus parts per million of indoor air
contamination of lead.
My office called and we got FEMA to send a trailer over 2 days later
so they could set up some computers and telephones and at least have a
rudimentary office in the parking lot next to their closed-down office
being remediated for lead contamination.
Three days later, the following Monday, I found that FEMA had come
and towed the trailer away because it was contaminated with
formaldehyde. Two-plus years after Hurricane Katrina, they still don't
know which of their trailers have formaldehyde in them and which ones
don't.
That is why oversight is needed. Whether it is the Veterans' Affairs
Committee, which has performed significant oversight, whether it is the
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee looking at Coast Guard
sweetheart deals with military contractors that resulted in eight
vessels being lengthened by 13 feet and rendered unseaworthy, the 123s,
as they call them, so they are now being scrapped in Baltimore Harbor,
or whether it is oversight of the conduct of the war in Iraq, this body
needs to perform oversight, and I am glad after the last 6 years, it is
finally doing so.
Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, we have just about 5 minutes left, so I
thought all my colleagues would like a last chance to talk about what
article I means to them and where they think we in this Congress can do
our best work in furtherance of the goals of article I.
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, when I think about article I, I think this
passage in the Federalist Papers where it says that we are to be in
intimate sympathy with the people, I got to tell you, that when I sat
down along with my colleague Congressman Hodes and Congressman Klein
with the Financial Services Committee to listen to people who had faced
foreclosure in their homes because of the subprime lending crisis, I
thought about article I.
Mr. Speaker, I thought about article I because article I is that
provision that empowers me as an individual Member of Congress to want
to listen to people who are facing foreclosure; listen to the mortgage
originators who say, yes, we do need to have some regulation of what we
are doing, there are some cowboys out there; to listen to these
community bankers; and to listen to people who say, look, I made all my
mortgage payments, but there is a foreclosure on the left and a boarded
building on the right, and my house where I paid every payment is now
suffering loss in the value of it because of this foreclosure crisis.
I was in intimate contact with article I as I sat there in earnest
and sincere humility listening to people and what they were going
through, when I was so proud to sit there on that committee to be able
to respond to the people. Because we have to go back there every 2
years. We can't take a vacation from the people in the House. We got to
listen every week. Week in, week out, we are in touch with our folks.
So Mr. Speaker, Mr. Yarmuth, I just wanted to say that article I,
what it means to me is sympathy with the people and action on their
behalf.
Mr. HODES. Mr. Speaker, I can't help but think about the importance
of the power of the purse. James Madison said, ``The House of
Representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the
supplies requisite for the support of government.''
The power over the purse is our weapon to use, and I am hoping that
this Congress will no longer be the President's enabler when it comes
to his misguided policy in Iraq. Earlier this week, he asked for an
additional $46 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing
the total request this year to almost $200 billion. By the time we are
done, we are going to be at $2.4 trillion in Iraq. That is enough to
provide college educations for every student who wants to go to a 4-
year college for free at a private college or university. We could
provide health care for every American for a year for the money we are
spending.
It is going to be up to Congress to make tough decisions on whether
or not we are going to use the power of the purse to take charge of
this President's misguided policy.
So I am in contact and intimate sympathy with my constituents in New
Hampshire who have said to me loud and clear, ``Do something to stop
this President's policies in Iraq.''
Ms. SUTTON. Mr. Speaker, just briefly, I thank the gentleman for the
time. As we began, the 2006 election was not simply a change of course,
but a return to checks and balances. Members were elected, as my
colleague over here says, to hear from their constituents. We were also
elected to speak for our constituents, and we have to be their voice.
That is what article I is all about.
So I am glad that this is probably the beginning of many hours to
come, where we are going to come to this House floor and we are going
to talk about article I and reclaim that responsibility.
Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentlewoman. Finally, our president.
Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for being
here. It couldn't have been put better. We represent the entire bread
of this country, from New York to New Hampshire out to Minnesota,
Kentucky down to Florida. And there is more to come and there will be
more to talk about this.
I am just reminded, remember how the Constitutional Convention ended?
All of us remember this story from school, where Benjamin Franklin was
asked what he was thinking about, and he said, I remember looking at
that sun sitting behind General Washington and thinking during the time
that this was crafted, is that a rising or a setting sun? And he said
when they had ended, I could say with happiness, it is a rising sun.
This country's democracy is still healthy, it is still moving
forward, the checks and balances are still here, and this country knows
that it is the true secret credit of where our greatness lies.
Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I thank all my
colleagues. It has been a wonderful hour. I think the dialogue we have
had tonight not only discusses an important issue, but also reflects
the greatness of the Founding Fathers because it created this body in
which we can have this type of discussion. So I thank my colleagues
once again. We will have many more discussions like this.
Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.

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