Melvin Watt: “Mr. Chairman, let me acknowledge from the outset that we often get results from State courts, local governments, Federal…”

“Mr. Chairman, let me acknowledge from the outset that we often get results from State courts, local governments, Federal courts, from every source, that we do not especially agree with. That happens quite often. But every time we get a result that we do not agree with, we cannot go back and change the law, at least we should not go back and try to change the whole process to address that. I want to direct my colleagues back to 1994 when my Republican colleagues came to the majority in this House and one of their primary platforms was that we believe in States' rights and we are going to dismantle the Federal Government's bureaucracy and return rights to the States, devolve government back to the local level where it is close to the people. Ever since they came in on that platform, they have been retreating from that very principle of protecting States' rights and devolving government back into local control. Now they have been doing it selectively, not uniformly; but I think the only principle that I can see running through every decision where they refuse to honor States' rights and local control is where their propertied constituents, their monied constituents, their corporate constituents, have a different interest and when that occurs they start to backtrack from this philosophical principle that they say they believe in.”