On the recordMay 9, 2012
I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I'll be very brief. I just want to say that I concur with my colleague's points, to a point. As my colleague acknowledges, we take an oath to defend the Constitution. The administration, the executive branch, also takes an oath to defend the Constitution. Effectively, what this amendment would do is say we are going to defund the Justice Department's ability to undertake and fulfill its oath to defend the Constitution. If the Justice Department disagrees with some Members of Congress about what their oath to the Constitution requires, we are going to defund their ability to follow through. I don't think that's really where we want to be because, plainly, the Justice Department feels the law is constitutional. They believe it's their obligation to uphold the Constitution. And to say that we're going to defund their ability to follow through on that, I don't think that is good policy. On that basis as well, I would urge a ``no'' vote
