Melvin Watt: “Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that resolutions of this kind tend to have no substantive value, so quite often…”

“Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that resolutions of this kind tend to have no substantive value, so quite often I just ignore them and keep going. But this time, this resolution was introduced by my good friend from New York [Mr. Houghton], and it started me thinking that while there is no substantive content to the resolution, it does give us an opportunity to do some important things related to democracy, and, aside from the partisanship that quite often exists in this body, it gives us time to debate, in fact discuss, the merits of democracy in this world, and to talk about some of the value that we place in democracy and the value of a democratic election. It is hard for us to imagine in this country a country that can go 30 years without having a democratic election. We take the ability to stand on this floor and outside this building and say what we want for granted. We take the democratic process and democratic elections for granted sometimes. But the value of democracy should never be assumed.”