ELECTION YEAR 2016

Ahh, the mysteries that will be solved during the merry month of November are many.  We will know shortly if the Cubs will take the World Series, a life-time dream for many of us. By Thanksgiving morning, we will receive a rough count on how many friends and relatives will be showing up around our dinner table. And, based on who actually shows up, we can only guess as to how many arguments will erupt over the outcome of this year's election.

This has been a very rough election year for all of us in the US.  Conspiracies, allegations of wrong doings, attacks on family members and spiteful “he said, she saids,” that we wouldn’t have allowed our own children to say about one another, run like a raging river of muck throughout our daily news outlets.  Do any of us really care anymore?

Regardless of who wins the big race, little will really dramatically change.  The President is still bound by the checks and balances our forefathers wisely incorporated into our Constitution.  Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

The House originates and sets the wording of bills that, after their membership gives their approval, are then sent over to the Senate.  In other words, they're the money makers.The House is set up to represent the people in their home state based on population.  The Senate, on the other hand, is there to advise the President and approve or disapprove his or her appointments and foreign treaties and to follow through with bills sent from the House.  The Senate also has the sole power to try all impeachments.

Those elected to the House of Representatives have only two years to get their work done before their jobs are up for re-evaluation by the people who sent them there.  If we aren’t happy with the way we are being represented, we can vote them out and replace them with those more to our liking.  Senators are voted in for a term of six years with one-third of the terms up every two years so your vote is a much longer investment in this candidate.  Remember that each state, no matter how large or small, gets just two of these public servants. 

The President can appoint a judge to the Supreme Court but must have the approval of two thirds of the Senate.  We get to vote on our local judge,s so as long as we do our part, we have control.  If, for some reason a local judge gets out of hand and does some unjudgely stuff, many areas of our country have Judicial Qualifications Commissions that can take them aside and explain to them to either get their act together or leave the bench before they get themselves in bigger trouble with the law.

Now having said all this, I realize that we don't live in a perfect society where laws are kept and those who represent us stay true to their promises, but our ancestors didn't come here to create a nation controlled by professional politicians either.  If that were the case, it would have been a lot simpler to continue to live under foreign rule.

We have learned that we can't count on those who we elect to always do the right thing.  We can't count on them to do their job, which is to represent the people who put them in power.   We can't count on them to place our needs above their own political and power/money-driven agenda.  The only thing we can count on is something we should have been doing all along.  Instead of relying on others to take care of our families, control our health care and education and to spend our money we need to take upon those jobs ourselves.

Occasionally we screw-up big time like our choices in the primary elections earlier this year.  We have nobody to blame since we went out and voted for our candidates to run as our choice in both federal, state and local elections, although in some cases, especially at the federal level, the pickings were not too spectacular. Sometimes we vote on local issues and amendments with no clear idea about what is at stake and assume that if it's on the ballot it must be good so, we vote YES.  Maybe you did the right thing this time, but it could be you just voted to lessen the power of your local government and gave control of your child's schools to politically appointed groups outside your community.

Many of us are uncertain of the outcome of the Presidential race and what will happen after the election.  Hopefully those checks and balances will hold and nothing too disastrous will happen; regardless who wins we certainly will need them.  While we're waiting for the next election lets try to keep informed and work out issues closer to home and to find those among us who might be intelligent, honest and willing to serve the will of the people and not the whim.

Sharon