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The People to Congress – Read the Constitution

By: Brian Darling (Diary)  |  December 5th, 2010 at 08:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Gun Owners of America (GOA) has a great idea for Members of Congress — Read the Constitution.  GOA is advocating that Members of Congress read the Constitution early in the next Congress out loud on the House and Senate floor.  What a great idea.

Will liberal Senators raise a point of order because they don’t want to hear the 2nd Amendment’s mandate that:

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Will liberals ask for equal time to read Supreme Court decisions that agree with a warped interpretation of the clear words in the Constitution?  We know that they dare not be on the Senate and House floor during a reading of the Second Amendment. 

The House and Senate should establish a new rule that members of both chambers must be allowed to read aloud the whole U.S. Constitution before they conduct any other business immediately upon the opening of a new Congress.

From the GOA web site:

If there is a mandate for the Congress coming out of the 2010 elections, it is that the Constitution must be made relevant again. And what better way to begin the One Hundred Twelfth Congress than to have read aloud, in both the House and Senate, the Constitution in its entirety.

It would be great to see Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) or Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) take to the Senate floor to read the Constitution.  Maybe they could round up Senator-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Senator-elect Ron Johnson (R-WI) to help out with the reading.  In the House, Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) can round up the Tea Party troops for a reading of the Constitution to the House.  Liberals will boycott.  No self respected gun hater would be caught dead listening to other Members of Congress reading the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.

More from the GOA web site:

The House and Senate will waste hours congratulating sports teams, naming post offices, and various other meaningless tasks. Even worse, it will spend much more time doing things for which it has absolutely no constitutional authority.  The purpose of this petition is clear and obvious. The Congress must be reminded that this is a nation of laws, and there is a law that governs what the Congress is empowered to do — either to justify their actions or to demonstrate when they are unlawfully operating beyond their bounds, no matter how well-intentioned.  If you believe that the Constitution matters in the 21st century, and if you agree that it would be time well spent for the Congress to read the Constitution, then please SIGN THE PETITION.

Consider this post my signature on that petition.  There is only one thing better than this idea from Gun Owners of America;  an idea to force Congressman to actually abide by the Constitution.

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COMMENTS

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  • OldNuc

    I propose requiring a 100 question essay test following the reading and any member who does not score 80 or above is expelled.

  • bushhog

    but respect must also be present. I’m fairly confident many on the Left know the Constitution quite well … and have developed ways to misuse it in the furtherance of their cause (see, e.g., the 911 Mosque issue). It is of no more use than our immigration laws unless its limits are on federal encroachment enforced — and that is the challenge for conservatives in the next Congress.

  • timelyrenewed

    This is an excellent recommendation, but ultimately it is more important that the Congress actually follow the Constitution. Beyond this, we need to redress the underlying distortions of the Constitution which have allowed the federal government to expand far beyond its original constitutional powers. The only sure way to achieve this is to amend the Constitution to restore the original constitutional structure which limited the federal government’s ability to expand to such a ridiculous size and power.

    However, this will not work as long as Congress holds a monopoly on initiating constitutional amendments. Some have proposed calling an Article V convention, but that would be uncontrolled and dominated by politicians and law professors. The solution is an “amendment amendment” which gives the States the ability to initiate constitutional amendments without a convention. In this way, grassroots constitutionalists could initiate amendments carefully drafted to achieve the restoration of the original constitutional structure in parallel with legislative efforts which we hope will finally begin to comply with the Constitution. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com for more specifics on this proposal.