Political Wrangling on House Floor Bogs Down Constitution Recitation

Even before Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., could begin reading the Constitution in the House of Representatives Thursday, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., raised a parliamentary inquiry, trying to ascertain exactly what would be read. Would it be the original Constitution, or the Constitution as it now stands, with certain portions superseded by amendments.

Showing the rust of Republicans not having presided over the House Chamber for the last four years, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, ruled that Inslee was not making a proper parliamentary inquiry, even though he was. Inslee then asked Goodlatte to yield for a unanimous consent request to find out the answer to his question.

Simpson initially ruled that out of order again, even though such a request is, in fact, in order. Since Goodlatte allowed it, ultimately, Inslee got to ask his question.

Somewhat in jest, Inslee pointed out that since the Republicans did not alert Democrats until now exactly what version of the Constitution would be read, Democrats had not had the appropriate 72 hours ahead of time to consider the language now before the House.

The last point by Inslee, that Democrats did not have 72 hours to read the Constitution language ahead of time, led to bellows of laughter in the chamber, perhaps mocking the Rep. for the claim's absurdity.

Inslee's political wrangling was followed by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), who rose to bring up the issue of race and slavery. He said that not reading the original unamended text could be considered offensive to African-Americans, as it would ignore their "long struggle."

"Many of us don't want that to be lost upon the reading of our sacred document," Jackson said. "The three-fifths clause would not be mentioned."

Yet the climax of the interruptions came from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who correctly noted that since the Constitution contains an amendment process, it is the "amended" version that we go by and that would be read. He also railed against the previous Reps. for referring to amendments as "deletions."

"There are too many who have fought and died for those amendments to call them deletions," he said somewhat disgustedly.