Government is Designed to Answer to the People
After three weeks of deliberation, negotiation, and nominations, in which conservative and moderate candidates were elevated and then rejected, every House Republican voted to elect Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the 56th Speaker of the House on Wednesday afternoon.
This is what our republican system of government is supposed to look like. The American people deserve transparency from their government, not backroom deals. The battle we’ve witnessed over the last few weeks within the Republican Party over who should be Speaker did not cause chaos and dysfunction, it exposed an already dysfunctional system that has been hijacked by powerful special interests at the expense of Republican voters.
The US Constitution opens with the words “We the people.” Section 2 of the Idaho Constitution proclaims that “All political power is inherent in the people.” The American people are sovereign, not subject to a ruling class that has authority to command us.
Elected officials, from city council members to congressmen, are not elected to rule, but to serve, to represent the sovereign people of this nation.
The election of a conservative like Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House is a small step in the right direction. The past three weeks have brought into the open how many of our elected representatives serve lobbyists and special interests rather than the people. How much time was spent debating foreign aid rather than the problems we face here at home? Border security is remains one of our most glaring vulnerabilities, while the tragedies like the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and the yet unexplained catastrophic fires in Lahaina, Hawaii have already been forgotten.
The American people are waking up and demanding a government that is accountable to them, not special interests. Elected representatives who have been in office for decades don’t see what is happening in this country. They’ve become too comfortable as yes-men to their big donors.
You see it happening in Idaho too. Any legislator who stands up for the people can expect to be tarred, smeared, and attacked by special interests that think they own our government. But the people of Idaho have grown wise to this game. They’re looking past the slick mailers and TV ads and learning who the candidates are truly accountable to.
Our founders did not intend for us to live under a monarchy, a dictatorship, or an oligarchy. They gave us a republic, if we can keep it. The American people have the freedom and the awesome privilege to choose their own government, and then hold that government accountable. The fight over the Speaker of the House was the republican system of government at its best, not its worst.
