Dear Editor:
Don’t let anyone tell you to sit by and remain silent about national issues. Members of Congress are democratically elected to represent each person in their districts. They take their direction from their constituent electors, not the President or their caucus leaders.
This is the form of government established by the U.S. Constitution to give effect to the Founders’ idea that the people should govern themselves, not be subjects of a king.
Congress is not beholden to the President. Quite the contrary. The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to make the laws and say how the peoples’ money is to be spent. The President is to work within the law to execute the peoples’ directions given through Congressional action. The President is not above the law. That’s what the rule of law means.
Public officials and employees at every level of government – federal, state, and local – take an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. Public officials should be encouraging you to stand up and speak out about what’s happening in Congress and across the country at the hands of a President who sees himself, not the Constitution, as the supreme law of the land.
Local officials trying to silence political speech are wrong to do so. It’s un-American, and it violates a solemn oath to protect the role of the people in government.
Candace Jones
