Testing is all the rage these days…or rather lack of testing is all enraging. There have been severe consequences to our health and our economy for being ill equipped to properly test our national population for Covid-19…and no doubt there will be a serious accountability moment for those responsible for our shameful failure in this regard. But the pandemic has exposed another critical testing need for our country…a Constitutional IQ test for those who presume to hold federal office in the United States.
Not to be lost amid the array of frightening words and actions by our current head of state during this perilous time is the fact that this peculiar head of state has little to no understanding of the basic tenets of his job. In one of his recent, typically batshit crazy press conferences, he stated: “When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be.”
This was a rephrasing of what he had said mere minutes earlier in challenging the authority of state governors: “The president of the United States calls the shots. [The governors] can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.
And that was a doubling down on a statement he made more than a year ago when he said, “Article II allows me to do whatever I want.”
It’s not just that these are statements that would earn a high school American history student a failing grade on a test on presidential powers, it is that they are breathtaking and utterly un-American coming from the person elected to actually hold and exercise those powers. They are not a gaffes or misstatements or “jokes” as those who try to dismiss Trump’s authoritarian leanings and affections maintain. They reveal a fundamental hostility of the intent and purpose of the United States through its Constitution. They reveal base ignorance of the balance of powers and vile contempt for our federalist form of government. An entire political party has emerged to fully support and enable this incipient authoritarianism, which indicates that this deficiency in basic Constitutional law goes beyond one person and has taken on epidemic proportions.
Allowing this to continue is tantamount to allowing airline pilots to fly without certification, doctors to operate without a license. It is a direct, deadly threat to our democracy, which requires an immediate Constitutional remedy. Therefore it is hereby resolved in this post: No one should be allowed to hold elected federal office who cannot pass a bare minimum Constitutional IQ test. For example:
1. The US system of government is best described as
a. strongman rule
b. balance of powers
c. laissez faire
2. The best description of the relationship between the three branches of government is
a. survival of the fittest
b. might makes right
c. checks and balances
3. Article 1 of the Constitution gives the Congress the right to
a. tax and spend
b. declare war
c. all of the above
4. Article II of the Constitution
a. gives the president total control over the government
b. limited control over the government
c. shared control over the government
5. The judiciary is
a. equal to the legislative and executive branches
b. superior to the legislative, but inferior to the executive
c. inferior to both the legislative and executive branches
6. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution
a. allows the states powers not specifically prohibited elsewhere in the Constitution
b. enshrines the right of states to go their own way whenever they disagree with a federal law
c. gives any state the right to overrule the Bill of Rights for any of its citizens
There. You get the idea. I can’t do all the heavy lifting here. But someone should. Someone in Congress should rather immediately introduce legislation that creates such a test, even with all the other necessary emergency actions in the queue because of the pandemic. The legislation should require that anyone seeking federal office first have to take the test. A failing grade should be established, which could prevent anyone for running for such office until he or she passes the test. Barring that, anyone can still run regardless of a passing or failing grade, but in every circumstance all test grades should then become a matter of public record at the time a candidate officially declares for an office.
The politics of this are easy. Voters want more accountability from their elected officials. Many would love to impose term limits; many would love to make them pay for their own health care; many would love to cut their pay. Making them all take this test would satisfy some of the electorate’s seething sense of outrage at Congress’s wanton irresponsibility.
More importantly — and more to the point — this public servant qualification test would advance our essential sense of civic duty by forcing those running for office to demonstrate at least a rudimentary grasp of the Constitution they hope to serve…and proclaim to honor.
