A Good Day for the Constitution

Most days of the year are bad days for the U.S. Constitution and those Americans who cherish it.

Out-of-control bureaucracies passing regulations that steal our money and freedom. Activist Supreme Court justices who rule that laws don’t say what they say and the Constitution says what it doesn’t say. Presidents who rule by fiat via executive overreach and the incompetent Members of Congress from both parties that cede their constitutional authority and allow it to happen.

But November 3, 2015 was a great day for the U.S. Constitution and conservatives who want to see our nation back on track again.

It was an election year overshadowed by presidential debates moderated by nincompoops who have never talked to a real constitutional conservative. It wasn’t even a traditional mid-term congressional election. But there were still key elections for governor’s mansions, referendums, and state legislatures.

While votes were being cast during the day, something very important was happening on Capitol Hill. Senator Ben Sasse is one of the brightest minds and most exciting voices for constitutional conservatism. Newly elected in 2014 from Nebraska, Sen. Sasse talked to many colleagues in his first year about their vision to improve America, what’s broken on Capitol Hill, and what needs to be done. On weekends, he traveled back to Nebraska to talk to his neighbors, regular Americans who have too much to worry about to care what the power-hungry politicians in D.C. are doing to further mess up this great nation that should be a city on a hill for all the world to see.

He just gave his maiden speech on the Senate floor. People took notice. Traditionally liberal media outlets including NPR and The Atlantic joined conservative thinkers at National Review and The Weekly Standard to highlight the freshman senator’s work and vision to get the Senate working again to solve our nation’s biggest problems – runaway spending, no constitutional accountability, and petty squabbling about things that don’t matter while the republic crumbles before our very eyes.

Sen. Ben Sasse is unabashedly conservative but realizes that in order to get things done, we must hold every elected official of all political parties and ideologies accountable. We need to have big fights about big ideas. We have to stop using stale talking points and strawman arguments and start having real debates.

Most importantly, he reminded his colleagues that our nation is not about the elected leaders on Capitol Hill but about the constituents, saying: “Each of us has an obligation to be able to answer our constituents’ question: Why doesn’t the Congress work? And what is your plan for fixing the Senate in particular? And if your only answer is that the other party is fully to blame, then we don’t get it, and the American people understandably think that we are part of the problem, not the solution.”

Then, as the election results rolled in last night, the pollsters and pundits and career politicians were once again proven wrong as everyday Americans who want to see common sense conservatism restore our Constitutional republic showed up to the polls to elect local and state leaders.

Matt Bevin won the gubernatorial race in Kentucky, and he was joined by a newly elected Lieutenant Governor who became the first African-American ever elected to statewide office in state history.

Her name is Jeanean Hampton, she’s a Republican, and she’s a member of the Tea Party.

How did the liberal elite respond at these results in addition to a freedom-strangling ordinance in Houston being struck down? They called voters stupid, and once again made clear that they only support democracy when it gives them the results they want.

But thankfully there are great Americans out there like Sen. Ben Sasse and Lt. Gov-elect Hampton, who sums things up best when she said, “Sometimes you’re screaming at the TV, you see things that need to be improved, and you’re screaming that someone needs do something, well sometimes that someone is you.”