Melvin Watt: “I have been engaged in a long-standing debate with my colleagues on the Republican side of this House about the…”

“I have been engaged in a long-standing debate with my colleagues on the Republican side of this House about the definition of what is conservative and what is liberal. And every time I come here, I try to start this way so that I put this debate in context for my friends. I should start it, ``Here we go again.'' That is one of their conservatives, Ronald Reagan, that was his ``Here we go again.'' Because it has always been my philosophy that the most conservative position in America is to defend the most conservative document in America, and that is our Constitution. So how my colleagues could start with a Contract With America that had two proposed constitutional amendments in it has always been kind of disconcerting to me, because they keep calling themselves conservatives and it seems to me that that is inconsistent. How in the 2-year period of that revolution we had introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a total of 118 proposed constitutional amendments, how they can continue to call themselves conservative, I do not understand.”