House Of Representatives Quotes
On that day, the Republican Majority in the House adopted a strategy to attach conditions to the normal budget process that they knew was unacceptable to the Senate and the President. The United States Government, the greatest nation on Earth, literally shut down all but the most essential services. What was worse is that the majority of the House of Representatives would pass a clean budget if they could vote on it. But the Tea Party Republicans blackmailed the Republican speaker that he would lose his speakership if he did not follow their strategy which was ironically controlled by a Republican Senator who had already lost on the issues they wanted in the Senate and in a Presidential election.
After Adams’ term as President, he was elected to the House of Representatives where he served for the rest of his career. He was constantly calling for the emancipation of slaves (see {77463}) in the House debates. The Southern Congressmen were so offended by this that they got the majority of the House to pass a rule that made using the word “slavery” out of order. It was called the “Gag Rule”. Adams, one of the best legislators and lawyers of his day, then started reading in the House debates petitions of his constituents calling for an end to slavery. The Southerners called for the Speaker to declare him out of order for violating the gag rule. But Adams pointed out that the Constitution gave citizens the right to petition Congress with no controls on the petitions. Therefore the reading of the petitions was Constitutionally mandated and trumped the Rules of the House. He then arranged to have many petitions submitted which he dutifully read on the House floor to the extreme anger of the Southerners.
This proposed Constitutional Amendment was debated just before Abraham Lincoln would take office. The South wanted to tie his hands on the Slavery issue, and wanted to end what had become a constant polarized Congressional debate over slavery. Of course, their idea of ending the debate was to Constitutionally prohibit further attempts to outlaw or otherwise interfere with slavery in the Southern states. A number of Northern members of Congress voted for it realizing that there was little or no chance of obtaining the ratifications of ¾ of the states and they wanted to buy some time for the Southerners to calm down over their fear of Lincoln and his upstart Republican party. The Amendment never obtained the needed votes though a few states did ratify it. Secession and the Civil War mad the amendment moot. The Southern position was so rigid, that they would compromise in no way on the slavery issue, and ended up of course losing more than they ever thought was possible by succeeding. Another reason this proposed amendment is historically important, is that it is yet another strong piece of evidence that the issue of the Civil War was slavery and not differences in political and economic philosophies as many Southerners have claimed since then. If States Rights in general were the great concern, would have been no reason to single out slavery if it were not the major issue. Yet the last phrase, “including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State” does just. Similar evidence is given by the Secession Resolutions of the Southern States and the debates around them. It is clear that slavery was the issue that the South fought over.
He was right but his timing was a little early.
Ford was then a Congressman and there was a conservative inspired impeachment probe of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.
Benton's solution was for the people to elect the President and Vice President directly.
His main reason for believing this is that all appropriations bills must be initiated by the House of Representatives. Lobbyists therefore often give the House more attention than the Senate.
This seeming abnormality was the result of most of the House of Representatives Congressional Districts being heavily weighted to one party or the other, some the result of demographics and most the result of intentional gerrymandering by the politicians in the State Legislatures. The Republicans at that time were much better at this than the Democrats and very few of the districts were competitive between the parties. Many Democratic urban districts had small democratic areas of the suburbs added to them giving them a larger majority than they needed to win while taking them out of the suburban districts making them easier to win for the Republicans. The original Constitutional concept that the House represented the people proportionately was then undermined as the Republicans could easily win the vast majority of the congressional seats and at the some tome garner millions of votes less nationally than the Democrats,
