1. United States
2. N.C.
3. Letter

I went to YouTube to make sure that our president actually took the oath of office.  I found a clip where he swore to uphold the Constitution.  There may, however, be a fatal flaw in the language of the oath.  It says the president will uphold the Constitution “to the best of my ability”. What if the person taking the oath has no ability, no willingness, has no desire, no inclination to uphold the Constitution?  Where are we now?  We are entering uncharted territory that will test our democracy, Constitution, and people.  The leader of our Executive Branch is trampling upon the very document which sets up the rules for our government. Last week we learned: • Closing USAID likely violated the Constitution in multiple ways • We are deporting people under the authority of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act which applies only to countries with which we are currently at war. • Banning transgender people from the military “invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment” Many other orders will also likely be working their way through the courts, like: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending approved by congress, shutting down agencies, crippling critical agencies by removing workers, firing government employees subject to civil service protections, and threatening to deport people based on their political views. The main thing we have going for us is that the Constitution gives us three co-equal branches of government. Our democracy may be somewhat broken should one branch abandon the Constitution, we still have mechanisms in place to repair the system.  We are seeing one of those mechanisms being mobilized.  The Judicial Branch is interpreting the law and making determinations on the Constitutionality of many recent executive orders and actions.  The Chief Justice has already had to make a public statement when the president wanted to impeach a judge who ruled against the Constitutionality of one of his actions. Where is Congress?.  Congress is broadly defined as being the representative voice of the people, responsible for creating the laws that govern the nation, managing the nation's finances, and ensuring checks and balances within the federal government.  In the face of these blatant and potential violations of our Constitution, where are you? The Speaker of the House apparently told members of Congress to skip out on town halls. He said, “We’ve seen this movie before” and “They’re professional protesters, So why would we give them a forum?”  I haven’t seen this movie before, and I was around for Watergate.  Last Monday evening I was at a meeting that was supposed to be a town hall for one of my senators.  There were over 1000 citizens, no one was a “professional protester”.  My senator did not attend, nor did they respond to an official invitation. Representatives and Senators, please revisit your oath to our Constitution and ask yourself where is your commitment now?