Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is the Constitution Annotated, or CONAN, as it is better known today, weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces. Its origins date back to 1797 when Congress passed legislation requiring every Member of Congress to be provided with a copy of the Constitution. These copies were eventually expanded to include Supreme Court case citations so that Members could see which clauses of the Constitution the Court used in deciding cases. However, as the number of citations grew by hundreds, the copies became less useful to Members because most had no idea what the cases were about and what questions were before the Court. So, in 1921, Congress began requiring reprints of the Constitution to include explanatory language that would make sense of the case citations throughout. This format is still used today. Initially, CONAN was printed every 10 years or so, but by 1970, Members began to complain that it was outdated almost as soon as it was printed. They addressed this by requiring that paperbound supplements to CONAN be printed every 2 years. Since 1972, that is what we have done: print a hardbound version of CONAN every 10 years and a paperbound supplement every 2 years. CONAN obviously has a rich history, dating back over two centuries. Nothing about H.R. 1234 erases or changes this history.…”