CC 2009 Day Three Recap

Day Three of CC 2009 Recap, Composed by Richard Church

If you want a rosy picture of the proceedings of the Continental Congress today, you probably don't want to read this post. While it seems that most of the other delegates are very happy with the results of the day's activities, I am probably one of the least satisfied delegates at this moment. To those readers who are currently wearing rose-colored glasses, you have fair warning before reading further.

But first the good news! The Continental Congress 2009 did something today!

We began the day with a couple of presentations having to do with the Money Clauses. Tom DeWeese, founder of the American Policy Center and delegate from the State of Virginia read three proposals written by Edwin Vieira, Constitutional scholar and author from Virginia. Unfortunately, Edwin Vieira was unable to attend in person. I have enjoyed Mr. Vieira's books and would have liked to hear him speak in person.

The first two proposals were addressed to the federal and state legislatures. Entitled "Reassertion of the Power of the Purse," they instructed that the legislators should establish Advisory Commissions to study and recommend means by which Congress can return to its legitimate authority to coin money and by which the States can exercise their responsibility to make "gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts."

The third proposal by Mr. Vieira, read by Mr. DeWeese, was entitled, "Declaration that all Unconstitutionally Incurred Alleged "Public Debt" of the United States is Void, and Enforcement Thereof." This proposal instructs Congress to appoint an Advisory Committee to study the validity of the public debt of the United States. All of these proposals include more detailed instructions for such a committee and provide time limits within which Congress should comply.

I probably should explain that one of the major purposes of CC2009 is to present "Remedial Instructions" to federal and state legislatures for them to fix present violations of the Constitution. These proposals by Mr. Vieira are written in the form of instructions for Congress and the states to follow. The idea is that if these instructions are not followed, the People of the country will need to decide what must happen next. This is similar to the grievances that were presented by the First Continental Congress. The King's silence on their petitions led to the Second Continental Congress which declared independence.

During the morning presentations, we also heard from economist William Bergman, who now works for Morningstar Investment Research, but used to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He was terminated from the Federal Reserve Bank when he noticed that there was a spike in the currency component of the M1 aggregate in August of 2001, immediately prior to September 11 attacks. This raised questions of whether there was government foreknowledge of the attacks and cost Mr. Bergman his job. One of the delegates commented that this was probably the best thing that could happen to him, but Bergman's expression and demeanor showed that his honesty on this issue had cost him and his family greatly.

But Mr. Bergman was not talking about 911 today. Rather he talked about facts of economics and touched on the costs and moral hazard of regulation. Also, Bob Schulz presented some of the legal action taken by We The People Foundation to oppose the AIG bailout, which is still pending.

After the presentations, the Continental Congress convened. The delegates voted to rescind the decision that was made yesterday regarding committees and go back to the previously agreed schedule. This was to facilitate the morning and afternoon presentations and to make sure that all delegates would be free to attend every lecture.

After debating other issues, some of which I discuss below, the Continental Congress succeeded in passing our first resolution so far. It was a general resolution expressing support for the Constitution without compromise. In actuality, the resolution doesn't do much, but it did a lot for the morale of the delegates to actually get something passed.

Before this resolution, we had been discussing issues regarding the Money Clauses. It was moved that Edwin Vieira's proposals be adopted. The proposals were sent to a committee, chaired by Kevin Tebedo, which reported back before the end of the session. Fellow Wisconsin delegate Rudy Eckert attended this committee meeting and had the opportunity to address the committee. Later sent to the committee was a Civic Action motion to encourage citizens to form networks to voluntarily use gold and silver money instead of fiat currency. When these items were reported back in the afternoon, the Continental Congress adopted the committee report.

For the afternoon presentations, we watched two movies produced by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership on the topic of the Second Amendment. The second movie, called "No Guns For Negroes," presented a look at the civil rights aspects of infringements of the right to keep and bear arms. It presented the case that gun laws actually leave law-abiding, inner city blacks at the mercy of criminals and drug dealers. This video was introduced by Ralph Conner of the Heartland Institute and the Chicago Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Mr. Conner is my favorite speaker so far.

Also presented were two more proposals by Edwin Vieira, read by Mr. DeWeese, to instruct Congress and the states regarding the reestablishment of Constitutional state militias.

Warning: For those of you who wish to retain your rose-colored spectacles, read no further. Everything is fine and Continental Congress should have your rights restored any day now.

Now for the rest of you who want truth. After passing the resolutions regarding money, the afternoon session spiralled into pointlessness. At the end of the morning session, a motion had been passed that substantially changed the scheduled proceedings. It specifies that a committee must be appointed for each agenda item. This part is fine. We're going to have to work in smaller committees to get anything done.

However, it also specifies that no motions can be entertained on an issue until the committee has had 24 hours to work on it. It also specifies that before the committee can begin its work, there must be a time of "discussion." So for instance, when we convened again Mr. Roland of Texas moved adoption of the two proposals by Edwin Vieira. This was ruled out of order by the chair, because the rules now call for a time of discussion during which motions cannot be made. So rather than passing Mr. Vieira's proposals and moving on, we heard a procession of three minute speeches.

This is a complete departure from usual parliamentary procedure. Usually, a delegate makes a motion, it can be debated, amended and/or sent to a committee if so desired. Without such a motion, discussion is not generally allowed under parliamentary procedure. Someone has to move something, and then it can be discussed.

Now the intentions of the delegates in proposing these rule changes were pure. The belief is that if everyone gets a chance to have their say, then a committee can propose a resolution, and there will not be a necessity for extended debate and amendment later on. However, what the actual effect will be is to delay debate for a day or two, and then we will still have to go through all of the proper procedure to debate, amend and adopt the committee report. There is no guarantee that this process will be made more expeditious by the prior discussion.

In essence, what this does is to turn our sessions into what Rudy Eckert referred to as "chat sessions." Every delegate gets to come to the microphones and spout off about the issue for three minutes. This moves us no closer to our goal of passing resolutions and merely wastes time. However, it did make a lot of delegates feel good about themselves. If bold and impassioned speeches alone can turn the tide in this country, then this Continental Congress is already a resounding success. However, I think we all know that this Liberty Movement has more than its fair share of talkers, but suffers for a want of doers. While most of the delegates have high morale this evening, their good feelings are the only real product from this afternoon's discussion.

I make a prediction, for the record. In about three days, when committee reports start to come in and we are once again bogged down in procedure, the delegates will realize their error and try to find yet another way to get around the simple solution of sticking to proper parliamentary procedure. By that time, however, we will have wasted much of our time that could have been put to more productive use. As one delegate stated to me personally, perhaps this group needs to suffer enough under this rule before they decide to actually get something done.

The only real solution to this problem is twofold:

1) Delegates must take the time to review proper procedure. The class last night helped greatly in this regard. Maybe we need a class every night with mandatory attendance by every delegate. That would go a long ways in solving the problem. It definitely would be more productive than the late-night "caucuses" that have been taking place.

2) The delegates must show individual restraint when it comes to debate and motions. There is just not time for every person to weigh in on every issue. Delegates must consider that every time they come to the microphone, they are spending the Congress's most precious asset: time. They must consider whether their motion or comment is worth the value of the time that it will take to address. Even the most simple motions, with no debate can take up to ten minutes or more of our time. Is it worth it?

Unless discipline and restraint are shown by the delegates, there is no reorganization or rescheduling that will fix the problem. If delegates want to discuss things informally, let them do it on their own time and not waste the time of this body with endless commentary that accomplishes nothing. To say that the above rant is my "two cents worth" would be to debase its value more than a fiat dollar.

So to recap the day, we passed a general resolution expressing support for the Constitution and three motions of substance instructing Congress and the states to reinstate Constitutional money, and recommending that citizens begin to trade in real silver and gold money. In addition, two committees are meeting this evening to work on the issues of the Accountability Clause and the Second Amendment. Not a bad start, but we'll need to pick up the pace soon if we hope to get through all of the issues.

In Liberty,

Richard Church, (Delegate from Wisconsin)