BY FRANK SALVATO – Have we as a nation – and more precisely, we are Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Libertarians and Republicans – completely given up on playing by the rules? That would seem to be the case, at least in the instance of election law in the State of Michigan.
The Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, a Republican, has abdicated her responsibility to enforce election law for the most basic of issues: how someone qualifies for being included on an election ballot.
The Hill reports:
“Michigan won’t appeal a federal judge’s ruling that placed Rep. John Conyers (P-MI) on the Democrat ballot, ending the threat that he would have to run a write-in campaign.
“The office of Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, a Republican, announced the decision on Friday to let the judge’s ruling stand.
“Conyers had originally been ruled ineligible to appear on the ballot for the August primary because local officials found he didn’t submit enough valid petition signatures.
“A US district court judge last week, though, overturned that decision, finding it unconstitutional, and issued an order directing the local election commission to place the longtime lawmaker’s name back on the ballot.”
Let’s overlook, for the moment, that fundamental election law is supposed to be – supposed to be – reserved for the States. While the US Constitution prescribes basic qualifications of an individual to participate in a federal election, State legislatures regulate the eligibility of an individual for voting and to regulate the qualifications for a candidate appearing on a ballot paper. Ergo, the federal judiciary has unconstitutionally overstepped its authority in intervening in this case.
If the Secretary of State – a position directly elected by the voters of any given State – is charged with the responsibility to faithfully execute election law, in the case of Ms. Johnson, the option to abdicate responsibility to follow the letter of the law does not exist. By not executing an appeal of the federal judge’s unconstitutional ruling she both violates her oath of office to faithfully execute her duties as Secretary of State, but she also betrays the constitutional rights of her State’s citizenry by surrendering the State mandated rights of Michiganians.
A citizen versed in the threat of Progressivism would point out that one of the primary goals of the Progressive movement is to centralize government at the federal level, moving the authority of government away from elected representation and toward an ever-expanding federal bureaucracy. Ms. Johnson, by skirting her responsibility to defend her State’s authority to render election law, has aided the Progressive cause in Mr. Conyers’ inclusion on the Michigan ballot when he had not satisfied the requirements to be included.
As the mainstream media continues to manifest a false narrative about a “rift” within the Republican Party, the fact of the matter is this. Those who call themselves Conservatives, Constitutionalists and TEA Partiers (and by the way, TEA is capitalized because it is an acronym for Taxed Enough Already) are standing against those “go along to get along” Republicans who consistently betray the core tenets of the Republican Party, chief among them the common understanding that the United States of America – as so eloquently stated by John Adams – is “a nation of laws, not men.” To wit, there is no “rift.” True Republicans are trying to purge Progressives from their ranks, especially in positions of leadership.
This understood, hasn’t Ms. Johnson proved herself a Progressive in the Republican Ranks? One has to ask, what gives Ms. Johnson the authority to pick and choose what laws she follows and what laws she doesn’t? An action such as this is something the Obama Administration engages in…and that, constitutionally speaking and in a land of laws and not men, is both unAmerican and illegal.