Wyoming should remember: Presidents are not kings

Wyoming voters will soon return to the polls for the November general election (early voting begins Oct. 8). This upcoming election is bringing with it a sense of unease from those on the right and the left. And that anxiety is a symptom of not just the party politics and tribalism we are all living under right now, but something deeper and more important. 

This month we celebrated Constitution Day, the yearly anniversary of the day in 1787 when 39 delegates signed their names to the newly completed Constitution of the United States. George Washington, as president of the convention, signed his name first. 

General Washington would become our president and notably finish his time in office by voluntarily giving up his presidential power in 1797. It was an act so shocking to many that King George III was reported to have said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” The king struggled with the idea that Washington would do such a thing because one idea was foreign to him — that presidents aren’t kings. 

The history of the human race is a long one of men fighting and killing to gain and hold power. And then other men fighting and killing to take that power. And on it goes. The idea of laying down power still shocks many to this day, but the American Constitution is a document infused with the idea that power must be relinquished and dispersed. It was written by men who had a healthy distrust of anyone holding power for too long. It’s something we should all remember today. 

The idea that presidents aren’t kings might seem like an unnecessary statement, but it’s one that many seem to be forgetting during this turbulent time in our politics. You see, the more dread our neighbors have over the outcome of a single presidential election, the more it serves as a reminder that the framers’ intent to have a full and measured balance of power between the federal branches of government and the states has been thrown out of whack. In Wyoming, social media posts, radio talk show callers, and comments at the local coffee shop signal a growing fear about the outcome of the upcoming election. 

If our constitutional balances were still working, people shouldn’t worry about the outcome of a single election. But there is an imbalance, and to put it right, two things need to happen. The first is a continued defense of the sovereignty of states, and the second is for our current weak and broken Congress to start doing its job again. 

Wyoming is a sovereign state. The Founding Fathers and many of their contemporaries voiced great concern over the potential for continual consolidation of power at the federal level, and they saw in the sovereignty of the states the obvious solution. 

The balance of power has strayed too far afield on the federal side, and some are trying to address that drift with the kind of despotic populism we see today, instead of employing the solution intended by the Framers. Making the executive branch more powerful isn’t going to solve the problem, it’s actually the worst thing we could do. 

Wyoming needs to continue to press our right to execute power over everything not outlined to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution. Gov. Mark Gordon, like his predecessors, has used the courts to challenge the federal government on many of the important matters to Wyoming, from land use to energy production to education.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1798, “The several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but by a compact, under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes … and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

Jefferson was echoing what had already been outlined in the newly written U.S. Constitution when he stated the federal government was designed for “special purposes.” As the 10th Amendment states clearly, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The second cure is to press our congressional members to do their jobs, to stop seeing their roles as simply being cheerleaders, advisors, stage props or errand boys and girls for their party’s chief executive or nominee, and start placing stronger checks on the executive — whomever he or she may be and whatever party they belong to while in the White House. Lawmakers need to stop depending on agency rulemaking and write clear, concise legislation. 

They also need to stop viewing their role in Congress as simply obstructing the other party in any manner they see fit. The current tribalism isn’t helping to bring clear policy changes to the forefront — it’s making it harder (as we saw in the border security debacle). Our current political fixation on division and retribution simply delays and destroys any common sense solution tolerable to both parties. 

Presidents are not kings, and all of us, regardless of party affiliation, should support restoring as quickly as possible the balance of power between the federal and state government, and between the legislative and executive branches. States’ rights are one of the ways we can do that. Wyoming must continue to fight for her sovereign rights. And all of us must demand more from our members of Congress. 

The White House should never have this much effect on our lives in Wyoming. And elections should never cause such an excess of anxiety and fear. It’s incumbent on all of us to be part of the solution.