Since the events of Jan. 6, 2021 and its aftermath, we and many others in the legal profession have warned about the steady erosion of the Rule of Law and the breakdown of our constitutional order. Still, over the last year, the decline has accelerated and has now reached locomotive speed.
Opinion
There is more than one cause for this, including partisan congressional gridlock, but it is clear the primal force behind the recent dramatic deterioration of our constitutional guardrails is the unprecedented assertions of executive power by President Trump and the accompanying unwillingness of our Congress to restrain him.
The president’s unilateral decision to send a large U.S. military force into Venezuela last week, without seeking congressional approval, is just the latest example of his executive power overreach. Through the use of hundreds of executive orders, proclamations and executive memoranda often disingenuously justified with self-declared “emergencies,” the president has repeatedly evaded Congress to take unilateral executive action beyond what any other peacetime president has done before.
The chronic resort to unchecked executive action based on one man’s declared “emergency” should raise an enormous red flag to anyone who claims to support American constitutionalism. Indeed, only a few years ago, our own U.S. Rep. Harriett Hageman sought to curb President Biden’s far more modest use of emergency executive orders by co-sponsoring the “Restoration of Separation of Powers Act” in Congress. Quoting James Madison, her bill rightly affirmed that “[t]here can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.” Her bill thus proposed that every executive order be expressly supported by a presidential “statement of [its] specific statutory or constitutional authority” and that every “emergency” order would be short-lived, automatically terminating after 90 days absent congressional approval.
But her bill did not pass. And now that President Trump is declaring the emergencies and signing the executive orders, her previous concern about runaway executive power has vanished. Both she and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis have stood by mutely while the president, claiming one emergency after another, has wrecked congressionally approved programs and agencies, impounded or re-directed congressionally appropriated funds, circumvented congressional authority to impose crushing tariffs on our allies, deployed military forces into states against their wishes, imprisoned and deported thousands of individuals without due process, authorized the killing of over 100 foreign civilians via multi-million dollar missile strikes on unproved charges of “narco-terrorism,” and, to start the new year, shaken our entire hemisphere by directing our armed forces to invade a sovereign nation of 30 million people, seizing its head of state and killing 80 people in the process.
These presidential orders are direct assaults on Congress’ constitutional authority to tax and spend, declare war and oversee the military — the fundamental powers over the “purse and the sword,” which our founders fought a long and bloody war to take from a king and instead place in the hands of “the people” through our elected Congress.
Yet, in the face of these unprecedented presidential actions, our Congress has done nothing to protect its hard-won authority — authority bestowed upon it through the supreme sacrifices of our ancestors. Indeed, in a perversely ironic twist, many in Congress, including our own representatives, have howled in protest when federal judges, seeking to preserve congressional authority, have declared various executive orders unconstitutional. As we wrote previously, this shameful condemnation of our judiciary by members of our legislative branch has not only encouraged the president to further exploit his executive power, but it has also weakened the independence of both the judicial and legislative branches and enflamed threats of violence against judges and their families.
The president and his supporters say all of this is “great” because our nation has become weak and only radical actions by a “strong” leader can save us. Espousing these views, the president thus quotes Napoleon to proclaim, “he who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” But this ends-justify-the-means worldview is both morally bankrupt and utterly at odds with our founders’ deliberate design based upon shared powers between three branches of government — a design inherent in our national and state constitutions and the laws established by our representative legislatures. Over the last 250 years, millions of Americans have fought and died to preserve our unique form of republican democracy, a governmental structure that has made America the hope and envy of the free world.
Yet the president and his followers now increasingly see our Constitution and laws as optional; they seek to discredit citizens like us who dare to challenge the authority for the president’s bold actions by calling us “elitist” or “radical woke leftists.” They say the world has changed and that our problems are now too big to solve through legalistic constitutional processes and “rules-based systems.” Tired of democracy, they cheer the president’s every action, including his ever-growing resort to force, whether through the expanded deployment of masked ICE brigades in blue American cities, or by bombing, blockading and threatening a growing number of sovereign countries.
It should be impressed: The president took his recent actions regarding Venezuela without even consulting Congress, let alone seeking its permission. Worse, our own three congressional representatives did not even want to be informed. Barrasso and Lummis both voted against a recent resolution merely seeking to give the Senate the opportunity to debate and discuss whether the president’s military actions in Venezuela required congressional approval under the War Powers Act. Their vote against even engaging on the topic gave the president a blank check to launch last week’s invasion, and seemingly whatever other military action he may have in mind for Venezuela — or anywhere else.
This is not the American way. Americans have always vigorously debated the proper ends of government, but we decided 250 years ago that the means to accomplish those ends must always conform to our Constitution and laws. Americans teach our children “might does not make right,” rules matter and the ends do not justify the means. We have not always lived up to our lofty national standards, and those standards have evolved through costly trial and error. Even so, pursuing our public goals the “right way,” in accordance with established law, international treaties and recognized principles of justice, is foundational to our national identity. It is also at the heart of American moral and religious traditions, which have always asked: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
We’ve come to the 250th anniversary of our founding, and yet another important election year. If we truly want to retain or reestablish our national “greatness,” then we, and especially those we choose to represent us in Congress and our state and local governments, must all profoundly recommit to the fundamental and very simple proposition that America is, and has always been, a nation of laws, not men. This is the American way. And it is the only means through which Americans can authentically pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” consistent with our founding. Our parents and grandparents and so many more fought and died for this principle. We can no longer allow our priceless heritage as Americans to be sacrificed on the altar of those who shortsightedly value their personal ambitions or political party power over our Constitution, laws and moral code.
Please join us this special anniversary year to demand that every Wyoming political candidate and office holder protect and defend America’s constitutional values and democratic institutions from further debasement. Our children and grandchildren depend on it.
Signed,
Michael J. Sullivan (Former Wyoming Governor & U.S. Ambassador, Attorney), Michael Golden (Wyoming Supreme Court, Chief Justice (Retired)), Michael K. Davis (Wyoming Supreme Court, Chief Justice (Retired)), Marilyn S. Kite (Wyoming Supreme Court, Chief Justice (Retired)), William F. Downes (U.S. District Court Chief Judge (Retired), Mediator), Frank Mendocino, (Former Attorney General & Wyoming legislator, Retired Attorney),Timothy C. Day (District Court Judge, Ninth District (Retired) and Past President Wyoming Bar Assn.), David B. Park (District Court Judge, Seventh District (Retired), Marvin L. Tyler (District Court Judge, Ninth District (Retired), Mediator), Peter G. Arnold (District Court Judge, First Judicial District (Retired), Thomas W. Harrington (Circuit Court Judge, Fifth District (Retired)), James Radda (Circuit Court Judge, Ninth District (Retired); Richard M. Davis (Past President Wyoming Bar Assn., Attorney, Sheridan), J. Kenneth Barbe (Past President, Wyoming Bar Assn., Attorney, Casper), John Masterson (Past President, Wyoming State Bar, Attorney, Casper), Anna Reeves Olson, (Past President, Wyoming State Bar, Attorney, Casper), Rebecca A. Lewis (Former Wyoming Bar Counsel (Retired), Rebecca W. Watson (Former Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Department of the Interior, Attorney, Cody), Donna Playton (Law Professor, Attorney, Laramie), John F. Araas (Retired Attorney, Sheridan), James R. Belcher (Attorney, Casper), Baend Buss (Attorney, Cheyenne), Kim D. Cannon (Attorney, Sheridan), Hal Corbett (Attorney, Sheridan), Susan C. Stubson (Attorney, Casper), Jean A. Day (Retired Attorney, Jackson), Stephenson D. Emery (Attorney, Casper), Stuart R. Day (Attorney, Casper), Judith A. Studer (Attorney, Casper), Emily Rankin (Attorney, Jackson), Cameron Walker (Attorney, Casper), Abigail E. Fournier (Attorney, Cheyenne), Adelaide P. Myers (Attorney, Saratoga), Alaina M. Stedillie (Attorney, Casper), Alexander F. Freeburg (Attorney, Jackson), Benjamin J. Rowland (Attorney, Cheyenne), Bradley E. Adams, (Attorney, Jackson), Bradley L. Booke (Attorney, Jackson), Catherine E. DiSanto (Attorney, Jackson), William P. Schwartz (Attorney, Jackson), Cheryl R. Schwartz (Retired Attorney, Jackson), Claire Fuller (Attorney, Jackson), Craig Newman (Attorney, Casper), Joseph F. Moore, Jr. (Mediator, Retired Attorney, Jackson), Robert Mullen (Mediator, Attorney, Casper), Edward F. Hess, Retired Attorney), George E. Powers, Jr. (Retired Attorney, Cheyenne), George Santini (Attorney, Cheyenne), J. Nicholas Murdock (Attorney, Casper), J.R. Twiford (Business Executive, Attorney, Story), Jack D. Palma II (Retired Attorney, Cheyenne), Jason E. Ochs (Attorney, Jackson), Jennifer A. Reece (Attorney, Casper), Jennifer L. McDowell (Attorney, Casper), John E. Ackerman (Attorney, Wyoming, Texas),), John H. Robinson (Attorney, Casper/Jackson), Kristen J. Schlattmann (Attorney, Worland), Leah C. Schwartz (Attorney, Jackson), Leonard R. Carlman (Attorney, County Commissioner, Jackson), Linda E. Devine (Attorney, Laramie), Linda J. Steiner (Attorney, Cheyenne), Margaret A. R. Schwartz (Attorney, Jackson), Mary Elizabeth Galvan (Attorney, Laramie), Mel C. Orchard III (Attorney, Jackson), Michael B. Rosenthal (Retired Attorney, Cheyeene), Michael F. Lutz (Attorney, Pinedale), Nicole G. Krieger (Attorney, Jackson), Pamela T. Parkins (Attorney, Teton County), Scott Garland (Attorney, Jackson), R. Scott Kath (Attorney, Powell), Richard J. Mulligan (Attorney, Jackson), Robert P. Schuster (Attorney, Jackson), Rolf Engh (Retired Attorney, Jackson), Tenille L. Straley (Attorney, Sheridan), Timothy O. Beppler (Attorney, Evanston), Weston W. Reeves (Attorney, Casper), Anna Mommsen (Attorney, Jackson), Rhonda Woodard (Retired Attorney, Cheyenne).
Update: This story was updated to reflect that Michael F. Lutz lives in Pinedale.
We need representation that will defend our constitution!!
They current ones do not!
This group of Wyoming lawyers may be from the least populated state in the Nation, but are helping lead the other 49 states in turning the Titanic around. It is one day at a time. Thank you for your courage and leadership, Wyoming attorneys.
WyoFile. Please tell me how on earth this piece happened to get buried so deeply in the archives of your Opinion tab so quickly? Every voting aged hominid in Wyoming needs to read the words printed above and to hear them repeated loudly, clearly, and daily until their hippocampi have become sufficiently marinated …and of course feel free to affix my John Hancock to this prescient declaration.
This is the most clear and thus disturbing piece I’ve read about the current state of our waning Democracy. Thank you for the clarion call to stand up and fight for us to recommit to our Nation of Laws. I raised my family in Jackson, Wy and am so happy this piece originates from WY.
Thank you for writing this letter. I’d like to add my name to the list of signatories.
Marion Yoder, Retired Attorney
Cheyenne
thank you.
What frightens me is the complete incomprehension by Hageman, Barrasso, and Lummis that they represent us, the people of Wyoming and not the one person they rubber stamp. I am also concerned that the two candidates running for Congress and the sole woman running for Governor are touting victory by accepting loudly their rubber stamp dedication to 47. We, the people, should take highest priority. Wyomingites are independent and historically dislike federal intervention and rules. I hope that the voters in the 2026 election recognize that what they were promised has not occurred, and that maverick unilateral choices are destructive to our values. Having served 10 years in the Wyoming State Senate, the way to resolve issues is to work with the minds and skills of both parties, not just one. We cannot continue with unchallenged, unconditional, without doubt acquiescece by current or future representatives.
The parallels between the growth and emergence of the Third Reich and today’s political climate are frightening. We are ignoring the lessons history has taught us, and we do so at our peril. We have met this threat before. We must not be heard to say, “It could never happen here.”
Beautiful and inspiring! A challenge to us all to live by our constitution and walk our talk. Thank you, WyoFile for printing this. I was so happy to see the names of Tim Beppler, attorney from Evanston and Mike Sullivan heading the list – both are friends of mine.
Due to our biology the natural state for humans is patriarchal monarchy. Most people desperately want a dad, a sire, a god, an alpha, a sociopathic dictator to promise to take care of them and tell them what to do. We will never escape that till we understand that. Novanchurch dot org.
Thank you! So well stated!
I would love to see this very important editorial posted in every newspaper in the state. My profound thanks to authors and all of the co-signers.
Though I don’t think college makes you intelligent, I do think higher education can help explain how the world works, stretch the imagination, and help form intellectual discipline. I recently had a high school graduate tell me that college indoctrinates you to be woke. When I pointed out that trump and his entire administration, along with most Fox News hosts are all college grads, I saw her brain break.
This is our biggest problem. An uneducated population is easy to manipulate, and why trump “loves the uneducated.”
Thank you for this letter and for all who signed it.
I sincerely hope this letter is heard by those who need to hear it and that it carries the weight it should!
I’ve gone thru the list twice and only see Mike Sullivan. Where is Mead, Freudenthal and Geringer
“Barrasso and Lummis both voted against a recent resolution merely seeking to give the Senate the opportunity to debate and discuss whether the president’s military actions in Venezuela required congressional approval under the War Powers Act. Their vote against even engaging on the topic gave the president a blank check to launch last week’s invasion, and seemingly whatever other military action he may have in mind for Venezuela — or anywhere else.”
Our Constitutional crisis exists because of Republicans, in Wyoming and the other 49 States. Republicans could have convicted donOLD j. trump in the Senate and removed trump from office, but they chose to let trump remain.
Republicans are the enemy within. Democrats must find a way to remove ALL Republicans from all elected offices, both State and Federal, by winning all local, state and federal elections. We can start by winning SOME elections.
Very Nice article and is why i won’t vote for any of the announced people for public office. Except Barlow.
We need to pass laws that will limit our president in all aspects, not only the law of the land, but also with the US Constitution. He’s going to be putting in a great depression if not worse, a war that we can’t get out of. It’s time for Congress to limit his power. Both parties are equally guilty!
Thank you all for your integrity and bravery, and reminding us of our deepest values.
Speaking truth to power may be the only way that we can get through this very difficult time. Thank you all, and my fellow Wyomingites for “fighting the good fight”!
As a veteran I am very disappointed in congress as a whole. As human beings can, they not have a since of caring, let alone right or wrong. Or is it more about money and power.
Wow. This is a Wyoming analogue to the first A-bomb test in New Mexico in July 1945. The vast roster of the Wyoming legal community in good standing for the last 50 years just detonated a T- bomb . Ground zero is the core Trump supporters, Wyoming Freedom Caucus , fossil Tea Party rabble , and quite a chunk of the current Wyoming government rolls and MAGA minions. Read the list of signatories. O-M-G. We’ve never seen anything like this on any issue.
And they are right.
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If you concur, dear Readers, would y’all please consider letting Barrasso, Lummis, and Hageman ( and any other ardent Trump supporters) hear your personal take on this , to reinforce and reverberate the message that democracy is in dire straits everywhere from Bill, Wyoming to Washington DC. This is a callout.
Well said and I couldn’t agree more, but publishing this is like whistling in a hurricane. The people that most need to read this never will, and even if forced to, it would have no effect as they are immune to reason and facts. In their strictly siloed world Renee Good needed to die because she deliberately and premeditatedly attacked and ICE agent with her vehicle; Trump had no choice but to attack Venezuela because voluntary American consumers of cocaine are dying by the thousands from Fentanyl overdoses [in their mushy minds this makes sense]; denying federal funds to so called blue states is only fair because they oppose the Orange Jesus’ policies; and finally that if Trump does go forward with his long held plans to cancel the mid-term elections he will be totally justified since a Democratic majority in either house would put a stop to his in progress coup.
Thank you for this important message. American politicians have hit an all time low, and Wyomings three traitors are the worst of the bunch. The Wyoming voter put a criminal in the White House, so what do you expect. This Women groping fool is ruining our country, and even the Supreme Court justices are helping him.
Well said! And I hope that down the road , that
my grandchildren won’t have to ask,” why didn’t
Someone do something? “
Bravo! How reassuring that despite the ceaseless drumbeat for Trump obeisance, Wyoming still has so many thoughtful, articulate, courageous citizens who believe in the promise of the American Revolution – a nation committed the rule of law rather than of men. Some lawyers have sold their souls to climb the ladder of political power, but these men and women merit our continued faith in the legal profession as a foundation of ethics and civic responsibility.
– Bern Hinckley
Laramie
True that, Bern.
Thank you! A breath of fresh air in these chaotic and dangerous times. The orange stain, maga and freedumb caucus are the problem!
The rule of law is the foundation of our governmental system as well as our economic system which has made it possible to run any business. Without the judicial system, would business disputes be resolved with guns on main street at high noon?
I strongly suggest every Wyoming citizen look at history before we repeat it. As pastor Martin Niemoller said during WWII “In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. . . . Then they came for me – and by that time on one was left to speak up.”
Absolutely! We must learn from the recent past to prevent it from happening again. Witnessing the administration take unprecedented actions with such arrogance and at an alarming pace, without any checks or balances, is something I never imagined I would see in my lifetime.
Many seats and offices go unopposed. We must encourage people to run for office and do our duty by voting in the upcoming midterm elections, while holding incumbents accountable.
Thank you for writing this incredible letter!
I, Kristi Radosevich, as an attorney licensed in Wyoming and Colorado (living now in Colorado) would add my name to & endorse this article; and express my appreciation for the authors and signors of this article. I hope it is read, considered deeply, and shared widely in Wyoming and beyond.
A timely civic lesson for those willing to read and understand the separation of powers put in place by our nation’s founders. If only our congressional delegation would would come to the understanding that there duty is to the upholding of the constitution, not blind support of the president. If the president was a democrat and had done any of these things using claims of executive authority, they would be demanding his head. They howled with outrage when Biden used executive authority to forgive student loans, which caused not one death foreign or domestically.
I very simply want to applaud these 78 people for their courage to express what is undoubtedly the largest threat to our democracy…..Donald Trump.
I thank you and encourage you to please keep speaking out.
I no longer recognize this country and know their are so many others, who feel the same way.
Truth! Thank you to those who signed this. This state and this country must wake up and stand up before it is too late and we lose our freedom.
I am proud of these judges and lawyers standing up and saying what needs to be said to this outrageous regime.
Wow! I very glad to see so many of our best and brightest have signed this. Thank you all! You are brave for doing so in this MAGA stronghold. You make me proud! You and all of us who care about democracy must stand up and resist as best we can.
LOL, roughly 40% of DC politicians are lawyers.
Studies show roughly a third of lawyers are alcoholics.
More than 40% of Americans have a negative feelings about lawyers.
Enriching themselves in a broken corrupt “just-us” system.
Yeah, Trump is bad. We only have him 3 more years, Lawyers never go away.
Chad,
Thank you for pointing out that many lawyers and judges suffer from substance abuse, although I think your numbers are exaggerated. It is a stressful profession, made more so by the decline of civility and respect for the rule of law, which this group has been writing about in recent years. For your information, the Wyoming Bar Association provides confidential assistance to members of the Wyoming legal community (see https://www.wyomingbar.org/for-lawyers/lawyer-resources/lawyer-assistance-program/). The program relies on donations. Perhaps you or others will be moved to contribute.
I have a cousin that was a lawyer for 20+ years. He eventually went on disability for severe depression. He was a VERY good atty., he knew was getting guilty people acquitted because he was talented.
He eventually realized he was selling his soul, in a profession that it is quite easy to do. He told me this.
Best advice for those seeking assistance at your link…
Find a different profession.
If true, it wasn’t the job, it was being related to you.
But, your personal anecdotes are probably just as dishonest as the rest of what you spew.
Many people throughout the United States are gearing up for “joyful celebrations” of the 250th year, seemingly totally ignorant of where we, as a nation, are headed. Wyomingites appear not to care if this country of laws survive, proven by their 70 plus voting percentage of Trump, and contiually voting the likes of Barrasso, Lummis and Haggeman. Then the lack of care for our own state brings in a growing number of freedom caucus. I sincerely doubt that Wyoming’s supporters of Trump et al will even bother to read the above letter, or if they do, it will not sink in. They will feel victimized.
The rule of law is the glue that should hold the nation together in these times of extreme and contentious division. When our leaders in congress forfeit their power and instead follow the might-makes-right mantra of a self obsessed flawed president, innocent humans die as the writers rightly remind us. We see the red flags and pray our representatives heed the warnings. Thank you.
Yes. These distinguished Wyoming leaders are correct to be concerned, even very disturbed by a trumps escalating disregard for our constitution or our basic principles. He and his administration have been destroying our nation, wreaking havoc and chaos just in one year. I shudder to imagine this year, etc, we must grow some spine, Americans, and stop this abuse..before it’s too late.
As a Marine Corps veteran, University of Wyoming graduate, and lifelong, fourth-generation Wyoming Republican, I fully endorse and support this message. I suspect many others do as well. For the sake of our country and state, let’s hope so!
Bravo! Every word.
Thank you. Spot on.
Sounds like the same issues Congress had with President Theodore Roosevelt. Seems our representatives in D.C. need to remember the reasons for the separation of powers.