Catching up -- The Separation of Powers

Although the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was formally established and recognized by the British crown in 1663, the year 2008 finally brought Rhode Island into the 19th Century -- politically. Rhode Island declared its independence from England on , May 4, 1776, two months before the other 12 American colonies. As an "independent" territory Rhode Island retained the 1663 Royal Charter as its foundational document.

Rhode Island was the last colony (13th of the original 13 states) to accept statehood when on May 29, 1790 the General Assembly ratified the Constitution. However, the foundational political document for Rhode Island remained the 127 year old colonial charter.

As a result of this "conservative" response to liberal opportunity, the Rhode Island General Assembly has been governing authority in the state for over 340 years. The charter was modified by the first State constitution ratified in 1842. But this did not result in a significant redistribution of political power.

What do I mean by governing authority? I mean that the political powers of legislation, administration and adjudication have essential rested in the State legislature. Supposedly in the hands of the people, this form of democratic tyranny places the full political power of government in the hands of the Speaker of the House and President of the State senate. That is, until 2004, when 78% of Rhode Island voter approved an amendment to the 1841 state constitution, specifically establishing the separation of powers.

It has taken 4 years of public effort to overcome the obstructionist Democrat dominated legislature to final rest the powers assigned to the executive and judicial branches from the legislature. In 2008, a banner year, the judiciary finally had the backbone to rule in its own interest and confirm the principle of separation of powers. Edward Acorn of the Providence Journal describes the importance of this event.


Edward Achorn: A toast to courageous Rhode Island leaders

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

EDWARD ACHORN

RHODE ISLAND ENDURED more than its share of horrible news in 2008, but just before Christmas something wonderful unfolded — a coda to an inspiring story, suggesting that the state can, indeed, move forward, in spite of the powerful forces invested in dragging it down. All it takes is tireless work and courage.

In a landmark ruling that will be remembered, perhaps, as the crowning achievement of Chief Justice Frank Williams, the Supreme Court unanimously stood up for separation of powers, the constitutional amendment passed by nearly 78 percent of the voters in 2004

Separation of powers ends the legacy of 340 years of the overweening dominance of the General Assembly in Rhode Island, an unbalanced system that has contributed mightily to political corruption over the years. The amendment means that here, at long last, as in the other states, the legislature will write the laws, the executive branch will implement and enforce them, and the judicial branch will interpret them.

This is the system America’s Founders enshrined in the federal constitution. They well understood the dangers of despotism and corruption when legislators are permitted to implement the laws they write (or an executive is empowered to dictate the laws).

“The accumulation of all powers . . . in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” James Madison wrote in No. 47 of the Federalist Papers.

And such an accumulation, to some degree, has afflicted the Ocean State for centuries now, with the results we now see in government dysfunction and resulting economic malaise.

In the four years since voters passed the amendment in a landslide, the General Assembly has worked hard to implement much of it. Legislators had to be removed from boards where they were exercising executive powers, and to shift to their proper role of providing oversight of the executive branch.

But lawmakers could not resist clinging to one glittering jewel: their appointments to the Coastal Resources Management Council. The council is a goldmine for politicians, because significant money and power is involved in coastal development in the Ocean State. So the legislature petitioned the Supreme Court for a ruling about whether it could retain that power, under a section of the constitution that stated “it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide for conservation of the air, land, water.”

The argument was as specious as it gets. The General Assembly could still exercise that “duty” in a legislative role — writing laws — without wielding executive powers unconstitutionally. But no one knew what the Supreme Court might decide.

After all, the court relies on legislators for the funding of its budget every year (and, thus, for patronage and other power), and it is never a good idea to buck the leaders of the General Assembly. And there was the new $88 million Blackstone Valley courthouse the chief justice was seeking. Would politics come before the law?

Politics did not come first. The court, in what must be regarded as a courageous act of devotion to the state constitution and the rule of law, backed the right of citizens to self-government through the ballot box and the amendment process. It ruled that the voters meant exactly what they said they meant about SOP.

Those who write the history of this state will remember that. And they will remember the courageous leaders who worked for years to get the separation of powers amendment onto the ballot — sometimes against their own party bosses, at the risk of losing their jobs and local grants, and seeing their legislation tossed in the trash.

Those men and women of courage included some stalwart fighters: Sheldon Whitehouse, Lincoln Almond, Nicholas Gorham, David Cicilline and Michael Lenihan (among many others). Citizens groups, notably Common Cause under Philip West, led the charge. And, lest we forget, both Governor Carcieri and House Speaker William Murphy contributed to the passage of bipartisan legislation that brought this issue before the voters.

Some powerful figures sneeringly told me the public could never comprehend or care about such a complex constitutional issue, and I was roundly and personally attacked in testimony before the legislature for the crime of writing about SOP. But in the end, people who love this state kept plugging away.

It all goes to show: Rhode Island can heal itself. If it really wanted to, it could remove the straight-ticket ballot, the legacy of corrupt machine politics. It could wrest public schools away from special interests and shift the focus back to students. It could start serving the general interest, and stop honoring felons who betray the public.

What it will take are people who willing to challenge mean-spirited politicians and special interests who are masters of the low blow. Fortunately, there are good people who have the courage to do that. Even if they are maligned now, they should know their character will shine in the light of history. Those who stood in their way are the ones who will end up on the ash heap.

I think the court’s decision, putting an end to this long and exhausting struggle, is cause to open a bottle of a champagne. Here’s to the good citizens who made SOP happen, and to a 2009 when Rhode Island begins to lift itself back on track.

Edward Achorn is The Journal’s deputy editorial-pages editor (eachorn@projo.com).

The Oldest Experiment

A new epoch is about to begin. It is an epoch when we, Americans, may return to the center where basic human rights and dignity may be respected and differences accepted and tolerated.

The opening of the 21st Century and 3rd millennium of the Christian calendar, witnessed an attempt to over throw the principles that are the foundation of the “American dream.” Both here and abroad the rights of mankind and ideal of government based on the principles of basic human rights have been and are being challenged by dogmatic, religious fundamentalism of all stripes.

America was not born with the principles of human rights in place. America was born with a set of flawed ideal but with a faith in humanity’s potential to learn through correcting its failings. America has been and is a great experiment. It is an experiment in human relations based on a simple idea of the value of the individual. The purpose of government is foster, protect and mediate individual interests to form an environment that enables everyone the opportunity to realize his or her potential.

These principles are set forth as a goal in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. …” http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

And later the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States adopted on September 17, 1787, affirmed them when it states.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
http:// www.usconstitution.net/const.html

More significant, the enlightened leadership that formed the United Nations after World War II enshrined these ideals in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which were adopted by the General Assembly, 172 years later, on 10 December 1948. (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).

Unfortunately, we have seen the raise of forces of fundamentalism in religions and ideologies that desire to overturn these rights. These rights have been achieved through a long struggle by people of conviction. Millions have fought, suffered and died to build a world that respects the rights of every human being. The time has come for everyone who values these principles of human rights to take a stand and oppose those with narrow sectarian agendas. The question is: “How can this be done without one becoming the enemy itself?”

Three hundred and twelve years earlier in 1636, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the official name of “Little Rhody” was established with these principles in mind. Over the centuries, since 1636, when Roger Williams was forced to flee from the Massachusetts Bay Colony or face religious persecution, Rhode Island has been a haven for those who seek freedom of worship based on the principle of soul liberty. Williams recognized that the only way to achieve freedom of worship was to establish a government that was based on the separation of the spiritual world from the political world. He recognized the inherent tension between the sectarian and secular life. He set forth his ideas in his book: The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference Between Truth and Peace published in London in 1644. http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/31-wil.html

These principles were put into words and given authority when England's King Charles I issued Rhode Island's colonial charter to Roger Williams in 1663 and which states that the colony is established

"To hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with full liberty in religious concernments."

Soul Liberty is the founding principle that establishes the Rhode Island Legacy. That legacy has played a prominent part of both Rhode Island’s and later the American experience. At the core of the concept of soul liberty is the ideal of separation of church and state, religion from politics. A simple concept that has been the basis of the longest running “lively experiment,” -- Rhode Island.

This Blog is dedicated to the discussion and evaluation of how this “living experiment' has evolved. It will explore the inherent conflicts between human ideals and human performance as seen through the lens of Rhode Island’s Legacy.

You, dear reader, are invited to join the discussion. Help to frame the questions. Help provide the answers.

And let us have a LIVELY EXPERIMENT.