Andy Biggs: “I appreciate both of the chairmen for their comments. I want to add just a couple things. We are a constitutional…”

“I appreciate both of the chairmen for their comments. I want to add just a couple things. We are a constitutional republic. We are not a democracy. A constitutional republic actually elects representatives to make decisions and represent the will of a district or a State. That is the distinction. Democracy actually comes from the Latin word ``demos''. It is where the people themselves are voting directly on the issues and decisions to be made. That is really what happens in a democracy, which is why the Founders warned us and said: You have a constitutional republic, you don't have a democracy. You don't have a democracy because democracies have been short and turbulent in their destruction. As one historian said in about 1804, it has been the sad history of democracies that as soon as people realize they can vote themselves benefits from the government, they do so, and the government terminates. So we have a constitutional republic. We have separation of powers both horizontally and vertically. James Madison taught us very clearly that we should honor those separations rigidly. When we talk about horizontally, we always think of the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judiciary, which by the way, are not coequal branches. The Founders were very clear on this. They described the judiciary as the weakest branch. We control their jurisdiction, except for in a few cases of original jurisdiction.…”