On the recordMarch 26, 2014
I join in support of this bill not just because it is about amendments and the importance of public input, but ultimately because it is about two central tenets that the Founding Fathers laid out that I think are important to both Republicans and Democrats alike. Quite simply, their belief was that three, four, or five perspectives were always better than one. They didn't want to see unilateral action, they didn't want to see a king, and the idea of overstepping on that front was contrary to what they set up; and secondly, that the individual was to be the sole repository of power in our political system and that any government had legitimacy only inasmuch as there was consent by the governed. And what you see with many of these monument-type activities is no consent by the locally governed. So I very much believe in land conservation and have been an advocate for a long time, but I believe in a process that prescribes to that which the Constitution laid out necessary in that process.
