Ernest Istook: “But we are at a key position, because this amendment has been approved by the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the…”

“But we are at a key position, because this amendment has been approved by the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, and approved by the House Committee on the Judiciary. That is the first time a committee of this House has ever approved an amendment on voluntary school prayer. Only one other time, in 1971, did we have a vote in this body on such a proposal, and that was done with a mechanism that bypassed the committee process. So even though, as the gentleman correctly notes, the Constitution establishes a deliberately difficult process for any constitutional amendment, we have come through the necessary stages to bring it to a vote in this House. And it will be the first vote in this body since 1971. And that is something that, frankly, ought to embarrass the many Congresses that have met year after year since then. Because if we look at public opinion polls since 1962, consistently three-fourths of the American people say we want a constitutional amendment to make it possible to have voluntary prayer in public schools again. Not compulsory, but not with the kind of restrictions they put on efforts to have prayer in public schools today. So it is long overdue for this body to act. And I want to make note, too, that this is what has happened before, when the U.S. Supreme Court went in one direction and the Congress and the American people said it is the wrong direction.”