Speeches & Floor Statements

Watch Rep. Gowdy's Floor Speech here

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to thank Chairman Goodlatte for his leadership on this bill and a host of others on the Judiciary Committee. 

Mr. Speaker, I want to have a pop quiz. That may seem unfair to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but I would give them a hint: the answer to every one of the questions is the same. I'm going to read a quote and then you tell me who said it.

“These last few years we have seen an unacceptable abuse of power…having a President whose priority is expanding his own power. “

Any guess on who said that, Mr. Speaker? It was Senator Barack Obama.

Here's another one. “No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as a co-equal branch the constitution made it.” Senator Barack Obama.

What do we do with a President who can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or that part? Senator Barack Obama.

“I taught the Constitution for 10 years, I believe in the Constitution.” Senator Barack Obama.

And my favorite, Mr. Speaker: “One of the most important jobs of the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the executive branch on the power of the other branches. And I think [the Chief Justice] has been a little too willing and eager to give the President more power than I think the Congress -- the Constitution originally intended.”

So my question, Mr. Speaker, is, how in the world can you get before the Supreme Court if you don't have standing? What did the President mean by that when he looked to the Supreme Court to rein in executive overreach if you don't have standing, how can you possibly get before the Supreme Court?

So my question, Mr. Speaker, is what's changed?

How does going from being a senator to a President rewrite the Constitution? What's different from when he was a senator? Mr. Speaker, I don't think there's an amendment to the Constitution that I missed. I try to keep up with those with regularity.

But what I do know is this, process matters. If you doubt it, Mr. Speaker, ask a prosecutor or a police officer, both of whom, as my friends on the other side of the aisle know, both of whom are members of the executive branch.

What happens when a police officer fails to check the right box on a search warrant application? The evidence is thrown out, Mr. Speaker.

Even though he was well intended. Even though he had good motivations. Even though we got the evidence because process matters. What happens, Mr. Speaker, when the police go and get a confession from a defendant? He did it.

This is not a “who done it.” He admitted he did it. You got the right person for the right crime. But what happens if he doesn't follow the process?

The defendant walks free. The criminal defense attorneys who are now Congressmen on the other side of the aisle know that that's exactly what they argued when they were before the judge, not that the end justifies the means. Don't look at the motivations. Look at the process.

Mr. Speaker, we are not a country where the ends justify the means no matter how good your motivations may be.

We all swore an allegiance to the same document that the president swears allegiance to, to faithfully execute the law. I will be listening intently during this debate for one of my colleagues to explain to me what that phrase means.

What does it mean? Not to execute the law, but when the framers thought enough of that phrase to add the modifier “faithfully,” what does that mean?

And if a President does not faithfully execute the law, Mr. Speaker, what are our remedies? Do we just sit and wait on another election? Do we use the power of the purse, the power of impeachment? Those are punishments not remedies.

The remedy is to do exactly what Barack Obama said to do, to go to court, to go to the Supreme Court, and have the Supreme Court say once and for all, we don't pass suggestions in this body, Mr. Speaker, we don't pass ideas, we pass laws. And we expect them to be faithfully executed.