Political Quotes

“I was advised that we could do nothing in this body to address the constitutional infirmity of literally transferring our constitutionally vested authority to represent our constituents to another. Therefore, I was told, and I believe that is the case, we have to go to the courts, the Article III courts, to express our concern that this is constitutionally infirm. This is not about setting our own rules. This is about directly opposing the structure of the Constitution in which we represent our constituents. Keep in mind that at the time of our founding in 1793, in the heat of yellow fever, 5,000 Philadelphians died out of a population of 50,000. That is 10 percent. That would be 180,000 or 160,000 today. Yet, what happened? James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were all working to figure out how this body could continue to meet in person. They didn't adopt proxy voting. They figured out how to work to meet. There is a letter sent from James Madison to George Washington on October 24, 1793, talking about this very issue, that in a pandemic, this body should meet. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.”