After nearly two hours, preliminary debates about which version will be read and one heckler protesting President Obama, the House of Representatives read the entire United States Constitution. Members, both Democrat and Republican, read the 220-year-old document in sections and applauded when it was all over.
The Skanner News Video
At left, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. asks whether they will be including the original text that proclaimed Black people to count as less than one human being when being counted for census. A statement from his office said:
"... The new Republican majority and their redacted Constitutional reading gives little deference to the long history of improving the Constitution and only seeks an interpretation of our Constitution based on the now, not the historic, broad body of law and struggle that it has taken to get there. ..."