Editor's note
John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.
At least U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Indiana, had the courage to do a town hall meeting.
Given the way that most Republicans are writing new chapters of “Profiles in Cowardice” these days, that’s something.
Egged on by their fearful but enabling leaders, most GOP officeholders spend the time they don’t devote to meeting with close family members and staff to hiding under their desks and hoping the abusive daddy figure in the White House won’t get mad at them.
They have yet to figure out that it’s possible to survive a spanking with one’s dignity and self-respect intact.
But cowering in fear rather than confronting obvious wrongdoing?
Not so much.
Spartz tried to find middle ground between abject capitulation and outright defiance to President Donald Trump’s whims, gyrations and loopy policy somersaults.
But her own bizarre performance demonstrated how difficult that task can be.
She defied her party’s leadership to meet with her constituents—again, good on her for doing that much—but she spent most of her time defending Trump’s policies and statements, even when they contradict each other.
Her odd statement that people who have broken the law aren’t entitled to due process has earned the most attention—and scorn.
There are so many problems with her logic that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
The first and most important is that it is through due process that we, as a society of presumably law-abiding citizens, determine if someone has broken the law. Due process is one of the checks on the power-mad, run-amuck government that conservatives such as Spartz used to devote an inordinate amount of time warning us about.
Now that Spartz and her ideological bedfellows are the government, being power mad and running amuck apparently isn’t a worry.
But the reality is that due process protects citizens—in theory, all citizens—from the abuse of government power.
Donald Trump is president again because he and his lawyers skillfully used all the tools available to a citizen—at least, a wealthy, well-connected citizen—to delay prosecution and defer any court judgments.
By Spartz’ reasoning, the fact that Trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts should mean that he no longer is entitled to those protections. That would mean that the due process safeguards that allowed him to evade sentencing once he was elected president would disappear.
Rep. Spartz should be careful about making arguments like that.
In addition to being a logically and constitutionally dubious proposition, contending that der president should be hauled back into court is likely to prompt mad papa to pull the paddle out again.
To be fair, expecting consistency or logic from Victoria Spartz may be asking too much.
She is, after all, the member of Congress who, last time around, was running for re-election until she wasn’t and then was retiring until she decided to re-enter the race. She also was strident in defense of Ukraine, where she was born, until she decided Russian Murderer-in-Chief Vladimir Putin wasn’t such a bad guy, after all, and all but abandoned her native country.
If she ever does leave politics, Spartz doubtless could render the public valuable service as a human weathervane.
After her town hall, stung perhaps by the criticism she received for it, Spartz leaned into the GOP justification for avoiding meeting with voters. She said everyone criticizing her was part of the radical left.
Please.
In the first place, Spartz represents a congressional district carefully gerrymandered to pack Republicans into its confines as tightly as peanuts in a vacuum-sealed jar. A caucus of all the radical leftists in her district could hold its meetings in a broom closet and still have room to spare.
Second—and more important—the First Amendment’s provision that citizens have the right to petition government for redress of grievances doesn’t have an asterisk by it. It doesn’t say that members of Congress only get to represent the people who voted for them or who agree with them or who like them.
Put in terms so simple that even a politician could understand, elected officials such as Spartz are supposed to represent and listen to the concerns of all their constituents.
Including the ones who are mad at them.
Still, Victoria Spartz did the right thing by meeting with their constituents.
It’s a pity she didn’t bring her ears with her.
She might have learned something if she had.
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