Political Quotes

“I'm glad Senator Kennedy drew attention to my amendment to the Militia Acts, sometimes referred to as the ``Insurrection Act.'' These statutes have not been amended for a half century. We urgently need a statute that clarifies when and how the President can use the Armed Forces in the homeland. This is not a new problem. The Second Congress passed a law in May 1792 giving the President power to call out the Armed Forces inside the United States. Congress carefully defined when the President could act. In certain cases, he had to get a judge's approval before calling forth the troops. When President Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion, he used this 1792 statute. Congress made changes to this authorization in 1795, 1807, 1861 and 1871. Clearly, Congress was responding to threats of the day. These included Aaron Burr's conspiracy, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. The end result of all these amendments was a very sweeping statute with open-ended authorization in some situations, but ambiguous authority to use the Armed Forces in others. So we clearly needed to revisit this.”