The 10th Amendment Task Force

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Mr. GOHMERT. As kind of a supplemental discussion from my friend from Utah--and I would love to have had one of the gentleman's classes in Utah. We would love to have had you teach in Texas. You are such a good teacher.

Supplementing the teaching that you've already provided, I'd just like to take people, Mr. Speaker, to Article V of the Constitution. It's a great document. I want to encourage people to read that, as my friends have already mentioned.

Some have said you would never want to have an amendment convention because it might be full of people who would come up with crazy amendments that would destroy the country, and so you would never want to do that. Some have said these guys that wrote the Constitution did such a perfect job, we should never allow an Amendment Constitution provided under Article V because that might mess it up.

But then on the other hand, if these guys did such a perfect job on the Constitution, then they must have put Article V in here for a reason.

Article V simply says, ``The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.''

Now, some have said, well, if you allowed the second part, the part that has never been utilized in the whole history of the United States, it would be destructive to the country. My point is, if we don't do something radical--and I'm not talking violence, that's completely unnecessary--but something radical from a congressional standpoint, from a national standpoint, we see where this is all going.

Just as my friends have been talking about, the excesses and the abuses are bringing this country to an incredible cliff. You know, we just read that China has now bought enough that it is approaching $1 trillion that it owns of the United States' debt. Well, that makes it a little tougher, doesn't it, to use leverage against China when we owe them that much money. Growing up, I had Sunday school lessons about the Bible teaching whoever you borrow money from becomes your master, and we've done that because we can't control the spending.

So we need something that is a little out of the ordinary to bring this thing in, and what better method than the one that the constitutional founders, the drafters, put in there, approved, and the States ratified, and that is to say, you know what, it's time for an amendment convention.

We have usurped so much power from the States--and this latest health care debacle, the health care deform bill that was passed and signed into law now, has the potential to bankrupt States that were having a hard enough time as it is.

Well, those States have power under our Constitution, and as we know, up until the 17th amendment, when those in Washington--and this was apparently pushed by Woodrow Wilson. He liked the idea of the Federal Government running everything, and he would have been really proud of the health care bill because it was all about the GRE, the government running everything.

So this 17th amendment was an effective way of taking away any check or balances that the States were provided under the Constitution because, under the Constitution, the State legislatures selected the U.S. Senators. Most students were never taught that. But the founders felt like there had to be a way that the Federal Government could be prevented from just usurping all the power from the States and the people as the tenth amendment talks about, and this would be it, because you would never send a Senator up here from your State, if you're a State legislature, if he's going to add unfunded mandates to your responsibilities in the States and take away your power at the same time. There were Senators that were recalled.

So, from the day after the health care bill was passed here in the House, I've been talking about an Article V amendment convention that would allow the States to come together and propose amendments. Now, there's difference of opinion. I had a wonderful conversation with former Attorney General Ed Meese about this. He has some good ideas as well.

But we have got to do something. And I am not in favor of repealing the 17th amendment, have never been in favor of repealing the 17th amendment, but there are some wonderful ways of reining in the Federal Government, maybe giving the States the right to veto legislation. So, there are a number of things, and as we saw back when the States were gathering momentum to have an amendment convention, Congress got scared that that would really happen so they rushed in and voted to repeal prohibition, proposed that of course as a constitutional amendment and it passed.

So maybe the States need to start that gathering storm, and we could get Congress to do what it needs and, that is, give the States some power like they originally had.

I appreciate so much my friend from Utah yielding.

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