Where do we go from November 4th? We get involved. Here are the first simple steps.
- Find out who is your councilman or woman, assemblyman or woman, elder or main person who represents your immediate community. Get their email address, their phone number, visit their office. This person is the most intimate person you will deal with in the democratic process. To this person you will bring your immediate grievances: pictures of the ruts in your road, the traffic light that doesn't work right, the lack of parks or maintenance to your schools.
- Know the name of your State House Representative. This person is responsible for fighting for legislation to protect your community (the stop light you requested), and the funding to make improvements to your local roads or public structures. Your House Representatives are the champions for the interests of your community. Get their email address, their phone number, and if possible shake hands with them personally. If you can't contact them personally, ask why? They above all others should be prominent and available in your community. By law, they should have a dwelling in the district they represent.
- Know the name of your State Senator. The Senator is the arbitrator, the negotiator for your district and the state. Whereas the Representive is the bull dog, fighting for the immediate needs of your district, the Senator must balance the needs of the district against the needs of the state. Senators are the statesmen. They must balance the needs of the district against the needs of the state. Points in case: A district wants to change legislation to allow mining of a certain ore in the district. The House Rep fights for the legislation to allow the mining because that is what his/her electorate desires, but the State Senator must evaluate the needs of the entire state when approving legislation. A real life example: the Pebble Mine might benefit the people in the community who will become employees for the company, but the fishing industry, which has interest statewide, might suffer should the mines activities contamintate the waters in Bristol Bay.
- United States House of Representative: This person presents to the nation the needs of the entire state. This person should be in constant contact with the state House of Reps, the Governor and the Senate, and their constituents. They fight for the needs of the State on the floor of the US House. The fight for laws to protect their state and they scramble for funding to help their state. By nature, they are scrappers, but their electorate must ensure that they scrap for their needs, and do not secure pork for the sake of making deals within the House. It is within the walls of the United States Senate that the rights of each individual State contrast the needs of the United States.
- United States Senate: The noblest of positions in the US government. Like their conterparts in the State Senate, they must weigh the needs of their own state against the needs of the nation. They above all must insure that the laws and regulations of the United States represent the best interest of the United States. The Constitution demands that no state be disproportionally taxed or legislated. Each state is alloted two Senators giving all states equal representation.
- The President: This person is the ultimate protector of our rights as citizen. This person is not so much a leader as the penultimate representative of the will of the people: the Constition states " a government of the people, by the people, for the people." They must uphold the laws of the land to their utmost ability. If President notices that the laws and regulations do not adequately uphold the provisions of the constitution, they have the right of the veto, but that right of veto must be used judiciously even as our judicial courts must proclaim with reason the ability of the laws of the land to uphold the intent of the Constitution. The right of veto should sustain and not conflict the US Constition. If it does, it does not serve the will of the people.
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