Heres a news alert: the White House and its defenders in Congress actually believe that the public doesnt have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government. Heres where the White House and its advocates are mistaken, however: we the people have every right to know whats going on in our government. Thats what the separation of powers doctrine is ultimately all about. It speaks to more than just the need to ensure an equal distribution of power between the branches of government. By ensuring accountability and transparency, it also serves to prevent any one branch of the government from taking over and establishing a dictatorship. To illustrate the point, imagine a weighing scale. The clear goal of the Constitution is to have a perfectly balanced scale. But when one side acquires more weight or power, the other side decreases in weight or power, resulting in an unbalanced scale--or in our case an unbalanced government. Unfortunately, Congress and the courts, particularly since 9/11, have repeatedly surrendered their responsibilities as separate and independent branches of government. Both must reclaim their roles and their constitutional duty to act as the full equals of the executive branch if we are to rein in our imperial president.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 15:00:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015