Darrell Issa: “this is not a de minimis issue, and those who would say that a constitutional question is ever inappropriate I am afraid…”

“this is not a de minimis issue, and those who would say that a constitutional question is ever inappropriate I am afraid do not understand the importance of millions of American children not knowing, depending upon where they live, how they should recite the Pledge of Allegiance. More importantly, it is not about religion. It is about from where our power comes. Our Founding Fathers rightfully said that our power came from the laws of nature and of nature's God in the Declaration of Independence. I do not know what Thomas Jefferson exactly meant; I was not there. What I do know is that our Founding Fathers believed that the power of the Almighty came to the American people and they loaned to government the right to govern them, rather than the sovereign that they had served in England, the sovereign who said that the powers of God came to him or her and that they then doled it out to the people they chose to. {time} 1400 That difference is profound. It is the difference in American government that we are not the governed of our government but, in fact, the owners of our government. More importantly, I want the Members on both sides of the aisle to understand that this is not about raising or lowering the importance, it is not about deciding what is appropriate in the Pledge of Allegiance. What it is about is having the indecision between the Ninth and the Fourth Circuit appropriately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.…”