S.Amdt. 4373

SA 4373. Mr. PAUL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to
amendment SA 4308 proposed by Mr. Scott of South Carolina (for himself
and Ms. Warren) to the bill H.R. 6644, a bill to increase the supply of
housing in America, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:

Strike title IX and insert the following:

TITLE IX--FINDINGS AND SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING PROPERTY RIGHTS

SEC. 901. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) The Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States prohibit
the Federal Government and State governments from depriving
any person of their property without due process of law.
(2) The origin of those clauses can be traced to Chapter 29
of Magna Carta, which was executed by King Henry III in 1225.
(3) For centuries, the Anglo-American commitment to the
rule of law recognized that no person would be deprived of
his right to freely acquire, use, and dispose of property
without a fair trial or just compensation.
(4) Even during the Jim Crow era, in which the state
legalized discrimination, property rights served as an
antidote to government-imposed racism. The 1917 case Buchanan
v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), in which the Supreme Court of
the United States unanimously struck down a segregationist
housing restriction, stands for the proposition that property
rights strengthen civil rights.
(5) In Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court found,
``Property is more than the mere thing which a person owns.
It is elementary that it includes the right to acquire, use,
and dispose of it. The Constitution protects these essential
attributes of property.''.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that
Congress rededicates itself to the concepts of property and
contract rights as inalterable principles of individual
liberty and rejects any attempt to prohibit property owners
from selling homes to investors of any kind, regardless of
the size of the firm.
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