Title: Raising a question of the privileges of the House.
Policy area: Congress

Summary:
This resolution directs the Speaker of the House of Representatives to (1) remove any item that names, symbolizes, or mentions any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery or the Confederacy, from any area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office building; and (2) donate any such item or symbol to the Library of Congress.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1148 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1148

           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 24, 2020

Mr. Gohmert (for himself, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Hice of Georgia, Mr. Weber of 
    Texas, Mr. Harris, Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Norman) submitted the 
  following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on House 
                             Administration

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas, on July 22, 2020, H.R. 7573 was brought to the House floor for a vote, 
        with the purpose of eliminating four specific statues or busts from the 
        United States Capitol along with all others that include individuals who 
        ``served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States of 
        America or of the military forces or government of a State while the 
        State was in rebellion against the United States'' yet failed to address 
        the most ever-present historical stigma in the United States Capitol; 
        that is the source that so fervently supported, condoned and fought for 
        slavery was left untouched, without whom, the evil of slavery could 
        never have continued as it did, to such extreme that it is necessary to 
        address here in order for the U.S. House of Representatives to avoid 
        degradation of historical fact and blatant hypocrisy for generations to 
        come;
Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856 
        states ``That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere 
        with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and 
        that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything 
        appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; 
        that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce 
        Congress to interfere with questions of slavery . . . are calculated to 
        lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such 
        efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the 
        people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought 
        not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.'';
Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 further declares that ``new 
        states'' to the Union should be admitted ``with or without domestic 
        slavery, as [the state] may elect.'';
Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 also resolves that ``we recognize 
        the right of the people of all the Territories . . . to form a 
        Constitution, with or without domestic slavery.'';
Whereas, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 penalized officials who did not arrest 
        an alleged runaway slave and made them liable for a fine of $1,000 
        (about $28,000 in present-day value); law-enforcement officials 
        everywhere were required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway 
        slave on as little as a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership; the 
        Democratic Party Platform of 1860 directly, in seeking to uphold the 
        Fugitive Slave Act, states that ``the enactments of the State 
        Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law 
        are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and 
        revolutionary in their effect.'';
Whereas, the 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves, passed in 
        1868 with 94 percent Republican support and 0 percent Democrat support 
        in Congress; the 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote, 
        passed in 1870 with 100 percent Republican support and 0 percent 
        Democrat support in Congress;
Whereas, Democrats systematically suppressed African-Americans' right to vote, 
        and by specific example in the 1902 Constitution of the State of 
        Virginia, actually disenfranchised about 90 percent of the Black men who 
        still voted at the beginning of the twentieth century and nearly half of 
        the White men, thereby suppressing Republican voters; the number of 
        eligible African-American voters were thereby forcibly reduced from 
        about 147,000 in 1901 to about 10,000 by 1905; that measure was 
        supported almost exclusively by Virginia Democrats;
Whereas, Virginia's 1902 Constitution was engineered by Carter Glass, future 
        Democratic Party U.S. Representative, Senator, and even Secretary of the 
        Treasury under Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed the 
        goal of the constitutional convention as follows: This Democrat 
        exclaimed, ``Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose. 
        That, exactly, is what this Convention was elected for--to discriminate 
        to the very extremity of permissible action under the limits of the 
        federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every Negro 
        voter who can be gotten rid of legally.'';
Whereas, in 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's administration began a 
        racial segregation policy for U.S. government employees and, by 1914, 
        the Wilson administration's Civil Service instituted the requirement 
        that a photograph be submitted with each employment application;
Whereas, the 1924 Democratic National Convention convened in New York City at 
        Madison Square Garden; the convention is commonly known as the ``Klan-
        Bake'' due to the overwhelming influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 
        Democratic Party;
Whereas, Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued Woodrow Wilson's 
        policy of segregating White House staff and maintained separate dining 
        rooms for White and Black staffers. He also continued the White House 
        Correspondents Association's ban on credentialing Black journalists for 
        White House duties until outside pressure from Black publications 
        finally forced a change in policy in 1944, the last year of his 
        presidency. According to the American Journal of Public Health, prior to 
        his presidency, Roosevelt not only banned Blacks from receiving 
        treatment at his polio facility in Warm Springs, Georgia, Black staff 
        were forced to live in the basement of the facility or in a segregated 
        dormitory while White staff lived in the hotel or in surrounding 
        cottages;
Whereas, Democrat Congressman Howard Smith, former chairman of the House Rules 
        Committee introduced the ``Declaration of Constitutional Principles'' in 
        a speech on the House floor where he attacked the Supreme Court's 1954 
        decision on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (KS) which determined 
        that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Smith's 
        declaration urged people to utilize all ``lawful means'' to avoid the 
        ``chaos and confusion'' which would occur if they desegregated schools. 
        History.House.Gov states that ``Under Smith, the Rules Committee became 
        a graveyard for numerous civil rights initiatives in the 1950s.'';
Whereas, in 1964, the Democratic Party led a 75-calendar-day filibuster against 
        the 1964 Civil Rights Act;
Whereas, leading the Democrats in their opposition to civil rights for African-
        Americans was a fellow member of the Democratic Party, Senator Robert 
        Byrd from West Virginia--a known recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan;
Whereas, Democrats enacted and enforced Jim Crow laws and civil codes that 
        forced segregation and restricted freedoms of Black Americans in the 
        United States; and
Whereas, on June 18, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from 
        the Capitol portraits of four previous Speakers of the House who served 
        in the Confederacy saying that the portraits, ``set back our nation's 
        work to confront a combat bigotry;'' the men depicted in the portraits 
        were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Democrat Howell Cobb, Democrat James 
        L. Orr and Democrat Charles F. Crisp: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall 
remove any item that names, symbolizes, or mentions any political 
organization or party that has ever held a public position that 
supported slavery or the Confederacy, from any area within the House 
wing of the Capitol or any House office building, and shall donate any 
such item or symbol to the Library of Congress.
                                 <all>