… “My faith in the Constitution is whole, “ is what I remember her saying. But she went on to say of her faith in our system: “it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. “
I will never forget her — I can hear that beautiful deep, resonant, voice in my mind to this day. Through her and the members of the Committee, my faith in the Constitution was restored.
When Nixon resigned, my relief was immense. I thought this was proof that our Constitutional system worked — that the House, Senate, and the Court would not fail us in the future. That we surely would have serious disagreements, but that there was honor there.
Yet each GOP president from then has been worse. The Senate and Congress included members who really did not believe in democracy, many of whom burrowed in and are still there, ancient but powerful. The Court itself cracked 25 years ago when it took on the case of Bush vs. Gore, and lied when they claimed that action “set no precedent. “ The Court fully broke when in this past decade they began the process of undoing all the progress we had made and they had endorsed in the entire second half of the 20th century, and in many cases the entire 20th century. SCOTUS broke.
Barbara Jordan tragically died young. My old Senator, Daniel Inouye, who gave his arm for this country in WWII, lived on, still serving the country, and is now gone. I am glad neither is alive to see this day, to see what we have become.
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