Melvin Watt: “Well, beyond the Subcommittee on the Constitution, the bill did not even go through the full Committee on the Judiciary…”

“Well, beyond the Subcommittee on the Constitution, the bill did not even go through the full Committee on the Judiciary this year. It has in prior years. But if my colleagues are seriously saying that they are serious legislators and Members of Congress, and they take their job seriously, and they are going to amend the most sacred and profound document of our country, the United States Constitution, do they bring a proposed constitutional amendment to the floor of the United States House of Representatives without even going through the Subcommittee on the Constitution whose job it is to deliberate and decide on the merits of constitutional amendments? Do they circumvent the entire Committee on the Judiciary and go around that committee and bring it to the floor? Or do they go through the regular process? So that in and of itself is an indication that this is a political exercise designed to score political points and having nothing to do with the merits of whether there should be a constitutional amendment. Now, we have gone through this time after time after time. In the past, I have tried to bring constructive amendments to the legislation. It was not a constitutional amendment when it was done before. It was legislation that one could try to amend and try to bring some rationale to. But this year, it is a whole new proposal. It is a constitutional proposal. But it went around all of the processes.”