The midterm elections didn’t provide the red wave Republicans had expected, but they nevertheless gained a small majority in the House of Representatives. In preparing for GOP control of the lower body, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted that on the first day of session “we will read every single word of the Constitution aloud from the floor of the House.”
Although a bit of a PR move designed to position the GOP as the upholders of the U.S. Constitution, there’s nothing wrong with reminding members that their prime job is to uphold the nation’s founding document. (We did however chuckle at some snarky Twitter comments, such as this one: “I’d be curious of their first impressions of it.”)
Before he can read the Constitution on the House floor, McCarthy needs to win the speakership job. Most Republicans support his ascent, but some conservative members are opposing his selection. Given the slim GOP majority, they are threatening to send the matter to a floor fight.
McCarthy’s effort to shore up his right flank no doubt explains the party’s promise – after they’re done reading the document’s 7,591 words with amendments – to hold hearings about Hunter Biden. Being a tad cynical, we hope such politically divisive investigations will at least detract Congress from its usual routine of spending money and regulating Americans.
Even though we’d prefer members of Congress to read every word of the bills they propose, we can’t see any harm in a constitutional reading. For starters, Republican members might learn that, despite arguments from ex-President Donald Trump’s legal team, the vice president does not actually have the authority to invalidate states’ electors.
Democrats might listen, too, and realize that most federal lawmaking and regulating usurp powers that the 10th Amendment reserved to the states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” By hearing the Second Amendment, they might also rethink their gun-control proposals. Hope springs eternal.
Members of both parties might have to rethink their zeal to regulate the nation’s Big Tech companies, by telling them how to moderate online content or making them public utilities. That restriction is easy to find in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Likewise, representatives from both parties might also learn that the federal system of asset forfeiture — and other aspects of federal policing — might also be a constitutional no-no. This is from the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”
By hearing the Fifth Amendment, members of Congress might also rediscover the need to reform laws that allow government agencies to engage in regulatory takings without paying owners compensation.
Representatives might discover the fundamental purpose of the Constitution was to restrain the power of the government so that we could create a “perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility … and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” So, by all means, let’s start every session with such a reading.
— Tribune News Service
