Brandon Williams: “My colleagues, let me begin with the obligatory statement that I, too, support the line-item veto. I happen to support…”

“My colleagues, let me begin with the obligatory statement that I, too, support the line-item veto. I happen to support it in the manner in which it is before us now rather than in the basic bill. That is what I voted for a year or so ago and most of my colleagues in the House, both Republicans and Democrats, voted that way likewise. My colleagues, if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep a couple of hundred years ago and then reawakened in this gallery anytime during the last 30 days, he would probably believe that he has awakened as a witness to America's second Constitutional Convention. He probably would not recognize this as a Congress legislating individual laws, but rather as a convention either mightily tinkering with or dramatically changing the basic law of the land. But it is not Rip Van Winkle's ghost I want to talk about for a couple of minutes; it is James Madison. On that May 3d day 208 years ago, James Madison entered the city of Philadelphia, a city of 40,000 people back than, along with several, in fact, several dozen of his colleagues. Elbridge Gerry, whose descendant was standing in the corner just a few minutes ago, George Mason, Colonel Mason, and others. They were attacked by radicals of the day, led primarily by Patrick Henry. Their work, when they finished it, the Constitution of the United States, is perhaps understandably still attacked today.…”