The refrain to Joe Goodwin and Edgar Leslie’s 1913 song “Where Was Moses When the Light Went Out” asks,
“Where was Moses when the light went out?
Where was Moses — what was he about?
Now my little man, tell me if you can.
Where was Moses when the light went out?”
When history is written — once actors thinking that narratives can be controlled until the end of time prove not to be as omnipotent as they fantasize that they are — the question will become “Who served in the Legislative Branch when the Separation of Powers went out?”
Matthew 22:21 asserts “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” stressing that no individual is God, even a demi-God; and Psalm 51:5 posits that, being human, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
To err is human: As Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 novel “All the King’s Men” — remembering Huey P. Long’s Louisiana — states, “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”
The Library of Congress’ Constitution Annotated, Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, Section 7:2 Introduction, comments,
“A well-known concept derived from the text and structure of the Constitution is the doctrine of what is commonly called separation of powers. The Framers’ experience with the British monarchy informed their belief that concentrating distinct governmental powers in a single entity would subject the nation’s people to arbitrary and oppressive government action. Thus, in order to preserve individual liberty, the Framers sought to ensure that a separate and independent branch of the Federal Government would exercise each of government’s three basic functions: legislative, executive, and judicial. While the text of the Constitution does not expressly refer to ‘the doctrine of separation of powers,’ the Nation’s Founding document divides governmental power among three branches by vesting the Legislative Power of the Federal Government in Congress; the Executive Power in the President; and the Judicial Power in the Supreme Court and any lower courts created by Congress.”
Nowhere is exception made for when one political party controls the Executive and Legislative Branches; nor when the incumbent President and those appointing a majority of the Judicial Branch are members of one political party; ditto when legislators and judges like a President or voted for him or her. Abdicating obligation to exercise independent judgment and scrutinize whether policies optimally serve citizens and the country abrogates constitutional duties which legislators are sworn to uphold.
The separation of powers finds further foundation in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, delineating Advice and Consent:
“[Presidents] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and … shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
While Congressional Representatives and Senators might think that it is permissible to ignore constitutionally-mandated duties (duties mandated rather than optional), legislators who failed to act will find themselves in the hot seat when something goes sideways (involving health, national security, war, weather or whatever). They cannot expect approval both when things go perfectly — they rarely do — and when things go wrong — as often occurs.
Ambitious politicians stand ready to replace incumbents. They will go for the jugular should a legislator appear vulnerable.
“Let the buyer beware”: Congressional Representatives and Senators sowing the seeds of their self-destruction shall reap what they sow.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
