David Cay Johnston

over 90 years ago, a small poverty ridden community of Choctaw Indians who lived in the area around Jena, LA, walked for 9 months from their homes to Muskogee, OK, to testify before the Dawes Commission. Although that commission determined…

I intend to offer my thoughts on House Concurrent Resolution 53, but before doing so, I would like to know if my colleague from Alaska might engage in a colloquy on a particular point about this resolution on which we would agree: that it…

I wonder if it is the Senator's intent by this resolution to begin a two China policy, that is to violate the terms of the agreement the United States made with the People's Republic of China in 1979 to recognize the People's Republic of…

If the Senator assumes that this amendment gives to the President that line-item veto, I assume that the Senator also assumes that that power is without limitation; that is to say, if the President has the authority under this amendment to…

Mr. President, my question today has to do with the authority of the President with respect to the balanced budget amendment. I wonder if the Senator from California can tell me when the President, on Inauguration Day, raises his hand and…

If this constitutional amendment passes and becomes the law of the land and the President takes the oath to uphold this Constitution----

What I really have in mind is what is the limit of the President's impoundment authority under this amendment?

Yes. The question I had, Mr. President, was to what extent does the President of the United States have a duty or authority under the Constitution, which he is sworn to uphold, to balance this budget if the Congress has failed to do so?

Then let whoever wishes answer it. I think it is a very serious question. And I do not think it is answered by the terms of the amendment or by the legislative history here. After all, we have a Budget Control and Impoundment Act, but this…

Is he one of those who disagreed that the New Deal helped bring us out of the Depression?

I do not believe that judgment is clear at all. I think it is probable that the Court can enforce this--probable. Reasonable minds can disagree. But why leave it deliberately vague, deliberately ambiguous?

my friend has outlined the emerging state of the law on the question of standing to sue. The issue of standing to sue goes all across the law and provokes about as many decisions as any area of the law that I know about. Suffice it to say…

I will tell you why it is left deliberately vague. Because there are some who are for it and some who are not for it and they want to leave it up in limbo. Mr. President, this is a Constitution we are amending. Why can we not say what it…

For many, many years one-man-one vote was considered by the Court to be a political question. And the Supreme Court in Baker versus Carr changed that judgment and said it is no longer political; we are going to order one-man-one-vote. Now…

The Senator is not competing with me. I think that is terrible policy, and I know my President is for it and I know Contract With America is for it. But it is absolutely the wrong time to be doing that.

My friend would agree that the courts are not prohibited from enforcing this amendment, and that in every other amendment the Court has jurisdiction to enforce, and they do get involved in every other amendment, do they not?

3 weeks ago I rose on the floor of this Senate to announce I would not be running for reelection. Today I rise, with the luxury of not having to face another election to the U.S. Senate, to oppose this amendment in its present form. I do…

In the Contract With America, it has both a tax cut and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

Under the 14th amendment, courts run prisons, courts run schools, courts have even required taxes. What was the name of the case where the courts required taxes to equalize taxes between school districts in a State? They do that all the…

Political doctrine? The Senator remembers the one-man- one-vote case, Baker versus Carr?

I will close with this because I have taken too long. My point is that it is a Constitution we are amending. It can be clarified simply and clearly as to whether the Court can enforce. It is the most fundamental question, and we ought to…

Section 6 says, Congress shall enforce and implement this by appropriate legislation. It does not say the courts lack jurisdiction to enforce the amendment. Every other amendment of the Constitution, my friend would agree, can be enforced…

Is not that language about the Congress acting to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation identical to the language found in section 5 of the 14th amendment, and that has not prohibited the courts from issuing literally thousands…

40 years ago, when my wife, Mary, and I were students at LSU, we discussed my dream of some day serving in the U.S. Senate. I am one of those few fortunate human beings who have seen his dreams fulfilled in the fullest and most satisfying…

It is very hard to lose an old friend. For me and my family and for many of us in the Senate, Shirley Felix was a friend. For years, whenever we were in the Senators dining room, we stopped to talk to her. Her death, on December 13, was a…