For the fourth time in recent years, many members of the House will take part in a public reading of the Constitution in Congress on Thursday morning.
C-SPAN is expected to broadcast the reading at 10:00 am local time in Washington, D.C. And as in past years, there could be a few bumps along the way in the proceeding.
When the event first happened in 2011, in the aftermath of the Tea Party’s win in the 2010 midterm elections, the 84-minute ceremony was preceded by bickering and followed by public criticism about the version of the Constitution read by the House.
There was a brief floor debate started by then-Representative Jessie Jackson Jr. about the proposed omission of the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” which is found in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. “It was of consequence to us,” Jackson argued about the compromise in 1787 that counted slaves as three-fifths of the population for voting and taxation purposes.
At time, the version obtained by Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia was the “amended” version of the Constitution. Goodlatte said he consulted with the Congressional Research Service and the Library of Congress on the exact text. The amended or edited version removes passages that were superseded by constitutional amendments.
Members of the Republican and Democratic parties took part in that first reading, and they accidentally skipped two other sections when they double-turned a page. The Washington Post followed the event and found that seven significant passages were omitted from the reading, including the 18th Amendment, which established Prohibition.
Democrats James E. Clyburn of South Carolina and Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland also objected to using an edited version of the Constitution in 2011.
“The Constitution is the basis of our laws, but it is also a historical document whose text demonstrates the potential for growth present from the beginnings of our nation. While portions of the Constitution have been amended, those portions have not been deleted, nor have they been excised from history,” he said in a statement.
John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights movement figure, has read the 13th Amendment, as recently as in 2015. Two years ago, many of the House members chosen to read from the Constitution made sure their constituents knew it, via Twitter.
