Melvin Watt: “It is the fourth year on or about tax filing day that my colleagues have brought this same amendment to the floor of the…”

“It is the fourth year on or about tax filing day that my colleagues have brought this same amendment to the floor of the House. It has failed on each prior occasion. They know it will fail again today. And this amendment is not here as a serious legislative undertaking; it is here to make a political point. If it were here to make a serious legislative point, as opposed to going through a political charade, this bill would have gone through the appropriate committees, one of which would have been the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary. I cannot imagine bringing a proposed constitutional amendment, an amendment to the most sacred document in government that we have, without going through the Subcommittee on the Constitution and going through the Committee on the Judiciary. Now, the reason that we did not go that route, or the majority did not go that route is because this is not a serious legislative undertaking.”