Nation needs to reinvest in separation of powers

Practically speaking, life has not always been easy in America. We’ve long been the envy of the world in many respects, but our preeminence has come at a high price.

We feel compelled to intervene too often on the world’s stage – laying our bravest warriors to rest as casualties of missions that are sometimes ill-defined. We tout the virtues of a free market, but the vigor of competition has left many behind. For too many, the wolf now lives at the door.

But we survive as a country, and at times we even manage to thrive.

Who, or what, are we to thank – besides ourselves – for our triumphs?

Today, as we face a fresh wave of unprecedented challenges at both the local and national level, the answer is more clear than it has ever been: Our saving grace is our separation of powers.

Every time one branch of our government threatens to bring us down, there is a check waiting around the corner to lift us up. Now, more than ever, we must engage this system. And we must stop at nothing to protect it. It is all we have.

In Kansas, with our finances in shambles, we turn to the Legislature to dig us out. And with our schools more strapped than ever, we look to our courts to protect our children’s futures.

On a national scale, with a new administration in place, there is not a day that passes without a check. Phones ring off the hook in senatorial offices with calls from angry citizens, imploring them to cast dissenting votes at Cabinet confirmation hearings.

When our gates were locked to targeted immigrants, our judges stepped in with injunctions. As the president flirts with lifting sanctions in Russia, our congressmen talk of codifying them.

This is just the beginning: Regardless of where you stand on our new president’s policies, you’ll be rooting hard for at least one branch of government over the next four years as it wades into the trenches of arm’s length political warfare.

Every single time you’ve felt shocked, ashamed and powerless at the hands of our government, you’ve eventually turned to the only place you have to go for justice and equality: another branch of government. As a Kansan, you protected our system again last fall by ensuring that our judiciary would remain independent.

Now, the stakes are even higher. Reinvest in our system by holding our politicians accountable, and protect our system by casting votes against those who seek to usurp its boundaries.

Nothing could be more important.

This story was originally published February 6, 2017 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Nation needs to reinvest in separation of powers."