In Congress this past week, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) fumed over the moderate Democrats who wouldn’t back her agenda. She raged and threatened because they wouldn’t take a stand with her and her army to overturn her latest Trump-based target. She seems to be demanding her perceived troops to gather around her. She’s not happy with those whose total allegiance is not to her and the Democratic Party.
To quote the U.S. Constitution, Section 2 of Article I: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year BY THE PEOPLE OF THE SEVERAL STATES…” A representative’s duty is in the name. Represent the citizens their state. Why? Go back to the preamble of the Constitution: “…in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide of the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty…”
A study of history will show that the Founding Fathers meant for members of the House of Representatives to reflect the attitudes and wishes of the people who elected them. The Constitution makes no mention of party loyalty. The House was formed in conjunction with the Senate so that a balance of power could be maintained. The larger populations have more power in the House and the small states have equal power with the big states in the Senate. The Founding Fathers tried to keep things equal by dividing up responsibilities.
The representatives I vote for are obligated to represent me and the other voters of Idaho. If they start representing the wishes of someone from California, you can bet that I’ll be unhappy. Remember Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota? He served there for 18 years, rising to the post of Senate Majority Leader. At the height of his power, he forgot who he represented and started caring more about the Democratic party’s wishes and the president’s wishes than he did about those who put him in that office. He was voted out. I lived in South Dakota at that time and was one of the voters who sent his opponent to the Senate. The endorsement of senators from other states holds little influence over my vote.
Our Congressmen and Congresswomen of both parties are in Washington to represent us, the voters. The domestic tranquility and general welfare (not the welfare state) of the country is in jeopardy, and they are fiddling while the country burns. It’s time to put egos aside and work together to insure the basic tenets quoted in the preamble to our Constitution.
If you haven’t read the second inaugural speech of President Lincoln, I urge you to do so (see https://nationalcenter.org/LincolnSecondInaugural.html). He was such a wise man. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace AMONG OURSELVES and all nations.” It’s time for Congress to get to work taking care of the country’s business.
Well said, Carol. Representatives of the people are not the same as representatives of the party.