A SAD, POLITICAL STUNT

The 112^th Congress is planning on starting the session by reading the U.S. Constitution aloud.  This would be a fine practice if the intent of doing so were to remind our representatives of the significance of the document and the seriousness of the job that they are undertaking.  However, this is not the purpose of the exercise.  This is nothing more than an attempt by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to placate their Tea Party base.
 
The Tea Partiers ran on the idea that all legislation must be constitutionally based, as if all preceding legislation hasn’t been.  Speaker John Boehner and his minions in the Republican Party are going to require that all bills cite the specific language in the Constitution which proves the proposed law is constitutional.  The Tea Partiers are going to be in for a shock when they discover that the U.S. Constitution is a flexible document subject to interpretation as times change in the country.  That is one reason for its longevity with so few amendments.

As Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is read aloud, the enumerated powers granted the legislative branch by our founding fathers will be heard.  Those powers are, in the order listed:

     -        To lay and collect taxes

-        To borrow money on the credit of the United States

-        To regulate commerce

-        To establish uniform rules of citizenship and bankruptcies

-        To coin money

-        To establish standards of weights and measures

-        To punish counterfeiting

-        To establish Post Offices and Post Roads

-        To establish copyrights and patents

-        To create a federal court system below the level of the Supreme Court

-        To punish piracy on the seas

-        To declare war

-        To raise and maintain an army and navy

-        To call into action the Militia (the National Guard)

-        To establish the District of Columbia as our capital.

And, last but not least, the necessary and proper clause:

      "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Our founders were not some form of all-knowing, all-powerful gods.  They were smart businessmen and politicians.  They knew that they couldn’t predict the future of our country and that the list of enumerated powers adequately covered the immediate needs of establishing a nation.  By adding the necessary and proper clause at the end of this list was an acknowledgement of this reality.  The founders wanted to be sure that they did not restrict the ability of the federal government to meet the needs of the country as new issues arose.

This is similar to a job description of an employee in a business.  Frequently, after listing all of the specific duties an employee is expected to perform, an item at the end of the document is inserted that says “and any other tasks as deemed appropriate by the management”.  This clause protects the management and gives them the ability to have their employees perform tasks for the business as the need arises.

The Tea Partiers are going to find that it is easy to cite the need to regulate commerce or the necessary and proper clause as justification for almost all legislation.  And if that isn’t enough, the Preamble to the Constitution will suffice.

     "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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."

Any one of the six goals for our country laid out in the Preamble will justify most legislation, as well.

The reading of the U.S. Constitution is a nice, historical thing to do at the start of a session of Congress.  But it is no substitute for the difficult job of governing.