Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a privileged resolution on Thursday that calls upon Congress to ban the Democratic Party for supporting slavery and the Confederate States of America, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Gohmert released a privileged resolution on Thursday that details the Democratic Party’s history of supporting slavery, the Confederacy, and other racist policies throughout the party’s history. A privileged resolution allows for Gohmert, or any other congressman, to “supersede or interrupt other matters that might be called up or pending before the House.” Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jody Hice (R-GA), Rand Weber (R-TX), and Andy Harris (R-MD) cosponsored Gohmert’s resolution.
A privileged resolution requires the House to either immediately table the motion, which then becomes a vote for or against it, or bring it to the floor for a vote within two days of its introduction. If the resolution survives a vote to table, each side has an hour to debate it before it comes up for a vote on the floor.
Gohmert’s resolution provides a long list of instances in which the Democratic Party supported slavery, the Confederacy, and racist policies, including:
- The Democratic Party platforms of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856 stated “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.”
- The Democratic Party platform of 1856 declared that “new states” to the Union should be admitted “with or without domestic slavery, as [the state] may elect.”
- The Democratic Party platform of 1856 declared that “we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories . . . to form a Constitution, with or without domestic slavery.”
- The Democratic Party platform of 1860, in seeking to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 that required law enforcement officials to arrest any individual suspected of being a runaway slave, stated 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.”
- No Democrat in Congress supported the 14th Amendment, which gave full citizenship to freed slaves. It passed in 1868 with 94 percent Republican support and zero support from Democrats.
- No Democrat in Congress supported the 15th Amendment, which gave freed slaves the right to vote. It passed in 1870 with 100 percent Republican support and zero support from Democrats.
- Various state Democratic Party officials enacted policies to disenfranchise and “systematically suppress” the right of African Americans to vote. The resolution specifically cites the 1902 Constitution of the State of Virginia that disenfranchised about 90 percent of the African American voters at the time, forcibly reducing the number of eligible African American voters from about 147,000 in 1901 to about 10,000 by 1905. The resolution notes that this measure was “supported almost exclusively by Virginia Democrats.”
- The administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, “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.”
- When the Democratic Party held its national convention in 1924 in New York City at Madison Square Garden, the event was commonly referred to as the “Klan-Bake” due to the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the party.
- Senate Democrats held a 75-calendar day filibuster against the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Former Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), a known recruiter for the KKK, led the Democrats to oppose civil rights for African Americans.
- Democrats “enacted and enforced Jim Crow laws and civil codes that forced segregation and restricted freedoms” for African Americans.
- In June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ordered the removal of the portraits of four previous Speakers of the House who served in the Confederacy, stating that these portraits “set back our nation’s work to confront and combat bigotry.” However, Gohmert’s resolution notes that the Speakers that Pelosi removed (Robert M.T. Hunter, Howell Cobb, James L. Orr, and Charles F. Crisp) were all Democrats.
Gohmert’s resolution also calls for Pelosi to remove from the House wing of the Capitol of any House office building 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.”
Gohmert told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement on Thursday that this resolution outlines that a “great portion” of the Democratic Party is “filled with racism and hatred.”
Therefore, Gohmert argued, that because leftists now demand that the country must eliminate “entities symbols, and reminders” of America’s past, then the Democratic Party must change to recognize its “loathsome and bigoted past.”
He explained, “As outlined in the resolution, a great portion of the history of the Democratic Party is filled with racism and hatred. Since people are demanding we rid ourselves of the entities, symbols, and reminders of the repugnant aspects of our past, then the time has come for Democrats to acknowledge their party’s loathsome and bigoted past, and consider changing their party name to something that isn’t so blatantly and offensively tied to slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and the Ku Klux Klan.”
“As the country watches violent leftists burn our cities, tear down our statues and call upon every school, military base and city street to be renamed, it is important to note that past atrocities these radicals claim to be so violently offensive were largely committed by members in good standing of the Democratic Party,” Gohmert continued, “Whether it be supporting the most vile forms of racism or actively working against Civil Rights legislation, Democrats in this country perpetuated these abhorrent forms of discrimination and violence practically since their party’s inception.”
“To avoid triggering innocent bystanders by the racist past of the Democratic Party, I would suggest they change their name. That is the standard to which they are holding everyone else, so the name change needs to occur,” Gohmert concluded.
Read the full resolution here.
Gohmert Privileged Resolution by Breitbart News on Scribd
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.