David Skaggs: “You know, we look at history not just because it is fascinating to know where we have come from, but because it is also…”

“You know, we look at history not just because it is fascinating to know where we have come from, but because it is also often instructive about the present and the future. And I think it is very useful to again go back to the debates in the Constitutional Convention about just this sort of provision, when the Framers seriously deliberated on the question of whether certain legislative subjects should be, should have a requirement of supermajorities to legislate. They understood because of their experience under the Articles of Confederation that this was a prescription for gridlock and paralysis. That is why we had a Constitutional Convention, to get us out of that problem. One thing I believe we can always be sure of, we cannot predict the future. We do not know on April 15, 1996, what a Congress in April 2096 is going to be facing. And yet we are basically saying we do not trust them to have the tools that they are going to require to be good stewards of this Nation's future, that we are so arrogant this year that we will deprive them of the fundamental tools of governing this country by virtue of passing an amendment such as this. I think it is extraordinarily ill-advised, even if we understood, which clearly from the debate over the last hour we do not understand, the meaning of the specific words being proposed to be put into the Constitution.”