Balance of power, a thing of the past?

By Howard Chandler Christy – The Indian Reporter, Public Domain.

On Balance

Those founding fathers who crafted our Constitution were brilliant! But if they came up short on anything, it was in anticipating man’s capacity for corruption. And what we have most recently corrupted (we includes you and I without regard to political party affiliation) is the ever so essential balance of power concept the founders built into that Constitution.

No surprise that our forebears settled on three branches of government. After all, they had just gone “all in” to use today’s term. They had ousted the King whose iron grip had encompassed all three functions of government. There was nothing to “balance” the King’s power.

Our Constitution, therefore, was fashioned with a legislative, an executive, and a judicial branch. Sure. We’ve all known this since the 8th grade. But if we have known this, why have we sat idly by and allowed our “leaders” to corrupt our Constitution?

Article III, for example, establishes the Supreme Court and defines its judicial power. But nowhere within that article or any of its subsections do we see language describing what we have recently seen. We have allowed a solitary judge of one subordinate sub-section of the Supreme Court to usurp the power of the President, the Executive Branch.

I challenge you, readers, to find me in error here! Go ahead. Read the entire Constitution and show me where our founding fathers established such judicial power! Yet, in recent months we have seen individual federal judges claim to themselves this power! (Washington state, Hawaii, and New York to name but a few.)

If the U. S. Supreme Court were to halt Executive Branch action, that would demonstrate “balance of power.” But for a solitary judge at some distant district to do so, that is judicial tyranny!

Now let’s shift our focus to the Congress. Established by our Constitution’s Article I, the Congress acts within its “balance of power” when the House and the Senate write and pass proposed bills of law to the President. Such is the power of the Congress.

But we have witnessed, and again idly sat by, as individuals and sub-groups within Congress corrupt the process. The Constitution allows and obligates the Congress to raise and appropriate revenue. This “revenue” is what is required to fund all branches of government so that each can fulfill its obligations to the public. Sounds straightforward, right?

It could be. But some members of Congress have found ways to usurp the process. They do so by not passing appropriation bills on an annual basis, but rather in segments of “continuing resolutions.” Then they attempt to tie non-appropriations legislation to the funding bills. We’ve just seen governmental shutdown owing to this very tactic. That’s not “balance of power.” That’s legislative tyranny!

So that’s how we thank those who gave us our Constitution? We have permitted, even encouraged, judicial tyranny and legislative tyranny. That’s not party politics. That’s absurdity.

It’s time for action. Vote!