Mark: Despite my borrowing a phrase from Tom Sawyer, I don’t take offense at the way the House Republicans read the Constitution yesterday. As I said, the point of the exercise was to remind the listener of the current limitations on federal power, and it certainly was a useful reminder.
That said, I think they could have done better. If House leadership really wanted to remind Congress of the need for restraint in exercising its constitutional power, it would have been better to read the United States Code or Statutes at Large. It would have had the added benefit of taking up most of the calendar of the 112th Congress to do so. And if you really want shut down Congress, the Code of Federal Regulations would be a nice nightcap.