The House Committee on Natural Resources, recently back under control of the Democratic Party, is looking to eliminate reference to God in the oath witnesses take before testifying to the committee.
A draft of the proposed rules would remove the words “so help you God” from the end of the administered oath, and replace the phrase with “under penalty of law.”
Altogether, the new oath read off to witnesses appearing before the committee would be: “Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
The document also shows a proposal to change pronouns. The draft rules would replace the words “his or her” with “their,” and change the reference to the committee leader from “Chairman” to “Chair.”
A spokesperson for Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., did not immediately return a request for comment.
Republican lawmakers say the proposed change is another sign of the Democratic Party’s shift further Left.
“It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority,” Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, the House Republican Conference chairwoman, told Fox News. “They really have become the party of Karl Marx.”
[Also read: Democrats’ 2020 hopefuls are already moving too far left to beat Trump]
