Our Republic

 

By Antonio Benedi

Last week we, a free nation witnessed a remarkable thing, free elections.  We should take into account facts that our founding fathers put into the framework of building a country unlike any other in the history of man.  A basic and important fact that seems to get lost in every election cycle is that our great country, the United States of America, is not a Democracy.  Let me reiterate this point, in our Pledge of Allegiance it is written, “I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the ‘Republic’ for which it stands”… Not, and for the ‘Democracy’, for which it stands.

Our founding fathers did not call the formation of our way of government a Democracy.  They intentionally called it a Republic.  “We the People” elect representatives to government to represent us. These representatives are entrusted by our citizens to govern and cast votes on our behalf.  They are committed to vote as they feel the electorate that put them in office would like them to.  But they are free to use their own judgment on every vote that is presented to them.  Given that our founding fathers wanted a representative government they established the framework of our “Federal” system.  They established a way for us to elect those representatives. The President of the United States is elected by the states “electoral vote.”  Each State has a number of these electoral votes that go into electing a President. The “popular” vote or our individual vote does not directly elect the President.  A President can be elected by 270 electoral votes and still lose the popular vote. Again, our individual vote does not elect a president directly.  The Congress has two bodies, the Senate and House of Representatives. The Senate is made up of two Senators from each State, regardless of population.  For instance, Wyoming and Montana have two US Senators each and because of the small population there, they only have one House member.  In case of a 269 to 269 tie in the Electoral College, it is the House that decides who the president will be, the Senate decides the Vice President.

Again, the House, the closest to the people, decides who the president would be. 

The President is elected every four years and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms.  The Senate is elected for six years and can be elected over and over again.  The House of Representatives is elected ever two years and it too can be elected over and over again.  This was intentionally done by our founding fathers to have the House of Representatives be the closest link to “We the People.”  If we do not like what our direct representatives are doing, we get to remove them every two years.

Last week the “Republic” spoke. The President was re-elected by a wide majority of the “Electoral College.” But the popular vote was very close. This is no mandate! The country was nearly split in half.  The Senate was re-elected Democratic by a few votes.  The House of Representatives, our closest voices to the Federal Government was re-elected Republican to be the majority and its leader, The Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Republican, to be third in line for the Presidency.  The succession of power is the President, Vice President and third, the Speaker of the House. Members of the House are the most direct keepers of our will and desires. They are the check and balance that the American people put back in power to protect our interest at the local and national level.  This was no mistake.  It is a clear indication that when you go to the lowest common denominator of our electorate, they re-elect a party that stands with them.  Without any hesitation in my mind, I truly believe our founding fathers had this complex framework written for the purpose of protecting the integrity of a single voter, in a single district/precinct, to be fully represented in this great nation of ours.

I regret that there were some basic fundamental errors committed in this election, for instance, the lack of control over who gets to vote and who does not.  The US Constitution states that “only” citizens of this country are allowed the privilege to vote.  There are many States that do not even require basic identification, or proof of citizenship.  Therefore, there are loopholes that exist in our voting procedures that must be corrected, but that’s for another day!

The United States of America is the greatest nation and last beacon of hope for the world.  We must protect our institutions and respect what our founders intended for us.  There will be new elections not far in the future.  Participate, you can and will make a difference!

Antonio Benedi is a former Special Assistant to the President of the United States, George H.W. Bush.

Cuban-American