MANVILLE: Don’t just gloss over senator’s policy remarks

To the editor:
   Now that the Booker-Lonegan contest is over, it is an opportune time to revisit the Founding Fathers’ ideas regarding the United States Senate.
   It is a generally forgotten fact that U.S. Senators have not always been popularly elected. Direct election of U.S. Senators only began with the adoption of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution about a century ago. Prior to that time, U.S. Senators were appointed by state legislatures.
   Another generally forgotten fact, in this era of seemingly unlimited presidential power, particularly in matters of war and peace, is that the United States Senate was intended to work with the executive branch of our federal government in conducting our nation’s foreign policy.
   Given the important role that the U.S. Senate was given to play in foreign affairs, the Founding Fathers thought it important to insulate, to some degree, the members of that body from the tumult of electoral politics. Issues relating to foreign policy were deemed to important to be left to the usual wrangling of competing political interests.
   Things have not quite worked out as the Founding Fathers intended. Instead of being composed “of the most enlightened and respectable citizens distinguished by their ability and virtue” (to quote Federalist No. 64), U.S. Senators have become just another group of politicians scrounging for money and votes so they can remain in office.
   Furthermore, some of them have embarrassed themselves and their country on the international stage. Exhibit A is the invocation, by the Republican Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois, of 1938 Munich and appeasement on several occasions in connection with ongoing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Sounds like he needs a refresher (or, for that matter, an introductory) course in pre-World War II Europe so he can understand the fundamental geopolitical and diplomatic differences between that time and the present.
   Consider also senators Inhofe and Moran’s recent op-ed against ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty. Besides including a tired cliché (“dead on arrival”) in their piece, they claim that the treaty would impinge on Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms. Putting aside their apparent failure to have read the text of the treaty, they write as if the “right to bear arms” is completely unfettered. This is absurd, since the U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2011 Heller opinion, acknowledged the power of states to regulate this “fundamental right.” Furthermore, many U.S. state constitutions contain explicit restrictions regarding the use of firearms. It is highly unlikely that we will turn the clock back to the previous method of selecting U.S. Senators. We must recognize, however, that with the power to elect them comes a responsibility to scrutinize their words and actions. The need for this oversight is most imperative in matters of foreign policy, where a number of our U.S. Senators are acting as flunkies in subservience to interest groups whose top priority is certainly not the safety and security of the American people. Remain vigilant my friends, remain very vigilant.
Leonard LaBarbiera
Hillsborough 