Constitution Day was Sunday, the 17th — the day we honor and remember the “formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787, recognizing all who are born in the U.S. or by naturalization, have become citizens.” To commemorate the day, I wrote this piece in The Hill, which explains one concrete thing we can do as we reflect about our founding document:
Sometimes, I look at the eyes of pundits on television, wide and full of righteous anger toward their conservative or liberal counterpart, and I feel hopeless.
The eyes reflect the hostility that so many Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, feel for their own countrymen, as well as the very government that is supposed to represent them. The look in those eyes reflects that our country seems to be spiraling out of control, with a new political crisis or controversy every day, and D.C.-based politicians asserting more and more control over our everyday lives — taking more power for themselves and their friends, and leaving little for the people they’re supposed to represent.
The biggest losers in this ongoing drama are the American people.
The look I so often see in the eyes of the talking heads, and all that it conveys, are good reasons for Americans to commemorate Constitution Day. On September 17, 1787, our brave and brilliant Founders signed the original seven articles of the Constitution. These articles established our political framework, our system of checks and balances, our independent branches of government — and offered us, the people, the power to change our government if it ever become unresponsive or overbearing.
This power rests in Article V of the Constitution, inserted two days before the end of the Constitutional Convention, which presents two ways of amending the Constitution. One of them is as follows…
Please enjoy the rest of this article over on The Hill, where I talk about the only solution to these political times — a Convention of States.
