A House committee voted to keep the words “so help you God” in an oath witnesses are required to take before providing testimony, after an attempt to remove the phrase sparked objections with some Republicans.
The Democrat-controlled House Committee on Natural Resources proposed to remove the reference to God from the committee’s oath, according to a draft of committee rules that was first reported by Fox News. The draft (pdf) shows the words “so help you God” in red brackets, meaning that the words would have been eliminated. The Democrats also planned to add the words “under penalty of law” to the oath instead.
