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Byrd Center hosts 17th Annual Tom E. Moses Memorial Lecture on the United States Constitution

By Tabitha Johnston - Chronicle Staff | Sep 24, 2021

Smock

SHEPHERDSTOWN — In spite of having to be held for the second year-in-a-row on Zoom, due to COVID-19 Pandemic concerns, the 17th Annual Tom E. Moses Memorial Lecture on the United States Constitution was still hosted by the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education this year.

Unlike in the previous years since its founding in 2005, this year’s event was held the day before the federally recognized Constitution Day, on Sept. 16, rather than on Constitution Day itself. The event was founded by the children of the late Tom E. Moses, in honor of his work as a long-time civil libertarian and World War II veteran who earned a Bronze Star and later served on the board of directors of the ACLU-WV.

This year’s Constitution Day lecture, “Re-Energizing the American Experiment,” was delivered by Ray Smock, interim director of the Robert C. Byrd Center and former historian of the United States House of Representatives.

“We need to re-energize the American experiment, and that means a fresh look at our politics, our government, our history, our educational system and at ourselves as citizens. This is a tall order, and what I hope to accomplish in this Constitution Day lecture is to suggest some of the things that we might want to think about, when we think of the Constitution and the State of our Union,” Smock said. “The persistent problems of the past are holding us back from dealing with the existential problems of the present and the future.”

Smock noted, during the lecture, concerns that may hamper the re-energizing he hopes to take place, such as continued weakening of social studies and history education in American schools and polarizing viewpoints on the Constitution’s interpretation. Ways to encourage the re-energizing of the nation, Smock suggested, included changing laws that may hamper the federal government from operating efficiently and effectively, such as the filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

“The filibuster in the Senate needs to be reformed or abolished. This device for delaying the passage of legislation, theoretically so there would be time for more consideration and debate, has become a device to stifle debate and stop political action,” Smock said. “The filibuster is not in the Constitution. It is a Senate Rule. It could be abolished, if there was the political will to do it. Right now, that will does not exist. The argument that the filibuster protects minority rights does not stand up to the historical evidence that it has been used to primarily keep minorities of citizens from getting rights.”

Two other ideas Smock suggested for re-energizing the nation, were to increase the sizes of the House of Representatives and Supreme Court.

“We are a more populous, more diverse nation than at any time in our history. We need that diversity in the House,” Smock said, mentioning an increase in House seats could be made without a Constitutional amendment, unlike with the Senate. “The number of House seats is set by law. Congress could change it. The law has not been changed for 110 years, when it was set at 435. In that time, the population of the United States has gone from 92 million to 333 million.”

“The Constitution sets no requirements for members of the high court. Yet, in recent times, many of them have come from a narrow spectrum of Ivy League law schools. And every single [Supreme Court] justice since the first court has had law degrees or studied law,” Smock said. “The court could use more diversity, not only in gender and race, but in citizens from other fields.”