Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding the right to vote.

Mr. Speaker, as a part of the opening remarks, I will explain and I hope answer the question of the gentleman from Washington.

This morning, for the first time in the history of the House of Representatives, we will read aloud the full text of the Constitution of the United States. We hope this will inspire many more Americans to read the Constitution.

The text we are reading today reflects the changes to the document made by the 27 amendments to it. Those portions superseded by amendment will not be read.

In order to ensure fairness for all those interested in participating, we have asked Members to line up on a first-come first- served basis. I will recognize Members based on this guidance.

In order to ensure relative parity and fairness, I may recognize Members out of order to ensure bipartisanship and balance. Two Members, one from each party, will be recognized out of order. Each Member will approach the podium and read the passage laid out for him or her.

The Speaker and two members of the leadership of each party will begin the reading, and then I will recognize Members in order. I thank the Members of both parties in advance for their participation in this historic event.

Parliamentary Inquiries

I thank the gentleman for his question.

We have consulted with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress actually maintains a copy of the Constitution which includes those sections that have been superseded by amendment. So we are not reading those sections that have been superseded by amendment. And we have arrived at that determination based upon our consultation with the Congressional Research Service.

I think the gentleman has stated that very well.

I thank the gentleman.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I take them very much to heart as has our leadership.

In fact, in recognition of the gentleman's concern, I mentioned in my comments that only two Members would be recognized out of order to read sections. One is the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who will read the first article of section 3 dealing with the judiciary. The other is the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), who many regard as the foremost advocate for civil rights in the Congress, he will read the 13th Amendment. In that regard, we hope to address the concern that you raised.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

It is an amended document. We are going to read the document as amended.

I thank the members of both parties in advance for their participation in this historic event, and I thank the leadership and Members for providing for this reading in the rules of the House.

It is now my distinct honor to yield to the Speaker of the House to begin the reading.

I now yield to the minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

I now yield to the majority leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

I now yield to the minority whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

I now yield to the gentleman from California, the majority whip, Mr. McCarthy.

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

I now yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg).

I now yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Critz).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).

I now yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I now yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I now yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

I now yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Gowdy).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

I now yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance).

I now yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I now yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

I now yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Canseco).

I now yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

I now yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West).

I now yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black).

I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. McMorris Rodgers).

I now yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).

I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Gardner).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez).

I now yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Pompeo).

I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Hayworth).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I now yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Richardson).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

I now yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

I now yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop).

I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Donnelly).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

I now yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner).

I now yield to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney).

I now yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris).

I now yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gibbs).

I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Section 4: ``The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republic form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.''

Article V: ``The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States . . .''

I now yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

I now yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).

I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton).

I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan).

I now yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

I now yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

I now yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Yoder).

I now yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Mrs. Roby).

I now yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).

I now yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bonner).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the leadership shown to bring this document for reading today; but I do want to inquire of the Chair and perhaps the gentleman who is the author of this effort today, Mr. Goodlatte. The language, as I understand it, that we will be reading today does not include some of the original language of the Constitution of the United States. On multiple occasions amendments have purported to change some of the intent of the original document.

I do have. My parliamentary inquiry is, will we be reading the entire original document without deletion, or will we be reading a document with deletions that may or may not have been accomplished by respective amendments?

And may I inquire of the gentleman, if I may inquire before we start this process, if he would explain to us so that we will all be on the same page.

I ask unanimous consent to ask the gentleman to yield for a question.

I will wait till Mr. Goodlatte is recognized, and I will ask him to yield so we can have clarity of this.

If I may ask unanimous consent to ask Mr. Goodlatte to yield for just a question so we all understand the reading.

Yes. My parliamentary inquiry is, may I ask the gentleman to yield for 30 seconds to ask a question of the derivation of this language that we will all be reading in good faith and in good spirits today?

If I may make a unanimous consent to ask Mr. Goodlatte a question so that we all do understand the nature of the language that we will be reading today, I think it would be very helpful to us on a bipartisan basis.

I thank the Speaker.

Mr. Goodlatte, could you explain to us the decision-making process about which language to read today?

And the reason I ask is, through our American history, we have had a series of amendments that were intended to change the original document, but the amendments do not make specific deletions to specific language in the original document, and it has been up to us to ascertain the intent of the amendments to figure out which language is operative or not. But the language has not specifically been deleted by the amendment, so it could be subject to some interpretation of which language really has been removed and which has not.

So I think it would be helpful to the Members if you explain to us how the determinations of what to read have been made or not made so that we will all be on the same page as to congressional intent.

And would the gentleman accept the premise that since we have not been able to review the exact language we will be reading today--I will wait for a moment, Mr. Speaker. We do want to have a good bipartisan success here today, and this is a special moment for us all.

So I guess the question is: I take it that since we have not had discussion about which language to read or not, that this is not intended to create any statement of congressional intent about the language but, rather, to do our best to have a moment of comity to read the language as best as we can ascertain it. Is that correct?

I thank you. And I very much appreciate your leadership in bringing this to our attention today.

``To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.''

Mr. Speaker, if I may ask unanimous consent to address Mr. Goodlatte.

I thank the gentleman for his kindness.

Let me first begin by saying that I think every Member of this body is approaching the reading of their Constitution with the most sacred possible spirit in what is clearly an unprecedented moment in the history of the Congress of the United States. And I don't take it lightly when my colleague or when others, before we begin the reading of our sacred document, are raising questions about what we would be specifically reading, what specifically will be redacted based upon amendments or based upon the recommendations of Libraries of Congress.

But I also want to be very clear, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Goodlatte, I recognize that this is a request, that in reading those redacted--and this is very emotional for me. This is very emotional, I know, for a number of Members, given the struggle--and I am not trying to give a shot at the process. Mr. Goodlatte knows me and he knows the spirit in which I'm approaching this--given the struggle of African Americans, given the struggle of women, given the struggles of others to create a more perfect document, while not perfect, a more perfect document, to hear that those elements of the Constitution that have been redacted by amendment are no less serious, no less part of our ongoing struggle to improve the country and to make the country better, and our sense in our struggle and whom we are at the Congress of the United States at this point in American history and our desire to continue to improve the Constitution, many of us don't want that to be lost upon the reading of our sacred document.

So with that said, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I just wanted to indicate that this is done with sincerity. It is not done to take a shot at the idea of reading the Constitution. But certainly, when we were informed, for example, that the three-fifths clause would not be mentioned and that other elements of the Constitution which justify why some of us fight for programs in the Congress will not be written in the redacted version, it is of consequence to whom we are.

Article I, continuation of section 2: ``The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

``When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

``The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.''

Article I, section 2: ``The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

``No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of 25 years and been 7 years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

``The actual enumeration shall be made within 3 years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of 10 years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.''