From Washington to Richmond to your County Board of Supervisors or City Council, why is it that ‘compromise’ has come to mean Republicans surrender and Democrats do as they please? Where are our principled leaders? Finding principled leaders is harder and harder to do. At least, leaders who will fight for Conservative principles.
Where are our principled leaders? When you look at nearly all levels of government, finding principled leaders becomes harder and harder to accomplish. I recently wrote about this in my article Compromising Principles.
When referring to the American people who think Congress can balance the budget, overturn ObamaCare, and shrink the size of government, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell lamented something like, “Do they really think we can do that?
Well, yes, Mitch. Because Americans elected a Republican majority. And, yes, especially since you promised us you would at least try.
On the other side, the Democrat President uses his “pen and phone” to exact unconstitutional and overreaching mandates on the people. The President doesn’t govern by the Checks and Balances set up by the Constitution, because neither the Legislature nor the Judiciary will use their power to do their duty to stop him.
But why should that even surprise us? The Supreme Court gets to legislate. They make up laws from the bench when their only duty is to rule on the merits of laws. They summarily change ObamaCare from penalty to tax, from Federal Exchanges to State Exchanges and the people suffer. They redefine the fundamental institution of marriage to whatever someone feels like it should be. Ignore the Constitutional and the Rule of Law. Principles be damned.
Yet, we are told – even by some in our own party – we all have to compromise.
Some seem to miss the notion and believe compromise is the same thing as negotiating. Here is a short summary of the difference:
- negotiate where you have the authority to do such
- compromise where you don’t.
And yet, one politician seems to be sticking to his principles, Terry McAuliffe. Here is a very short list of the record number of vetoes this year – with no compromise:
- Tebow Bill – allows homeschooled children to use the extracurricular activities of the school they would ordinarily attend, if they weren’t being homeschooled.
- Defund Planned Parenthood – withdraws taxpayer money for this abortion activity. (McAuliffe actually went to Planned Parenthood office and vetoed it there. Talk about a finger-in-the-eye to taxpayers).
- Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts – which would have allowed parents of disabled children to select a school that best suits their needs.
- Voter registration cross check with Jury Duty manager. This law would have required Jury managers to notify Voter Registrars when a voter was ineligible to sit on a jury (because the voter moved to another state, or died, or was not a citizen or was a felon). This effort would begin to clean up the voter rolls.
And now, after the General Assembly session is over, the Democrat Governor gives a blanket amnesty for Felons (Forget sanctuary cities. Virginia is now a sanctuary state for felons.)
We need to find leaders who understand the difference between negotiating and compromising. We need Republican leaders who don’t surrender (because the Democrats don’t). We need leaders who won’t compromise on principles. We need leaders who will do their duty to exercise the full powers of their authority, checks and balances.
When Democrats can ignore the rule of law, the damage they do is more than playing politics to win when they shouldn’t. Democrats are destroying the rule of law and weak Republicans are their accomplices.
When the rule of law and constitutionally-limited government is destroyed, Virginia suffers. Our Commonwealth can’t exist without the rule of law and her Constitution – and principled leaders.
Shak Hill is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.
