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. In addition, the resolution directs such organization or party to either change its name or be barred from participation in the House.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1063 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1063

           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 23, 2020

Mr. Gohmert (for himself, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Hice of Georgia, Mr. Weber of 
     Texas, Mr. Harris, and Mr. Crawford) 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 it 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 pecent 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 [African-
        American] 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, 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 and 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, 
            (1) 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; and
            (2) that any political organization or party that has ever 
        held a public position that supported slavery or the 
        Confederacy shall either change its name or be barred from 
        participation in the House of Representatives.
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