January 15, 2007
Dear Legislators of the 110th Congress:
Through election, the people of the United States have given you our consent to govern our nation. We expect you to execute this grant, in all matters domestic and foreign, as follows:
1. work vigorously to solve problems of local, national, and international importance; do not merely restate them and prolong them;
2. prioritize the fundamental common good over the demands of party relationships, however strong or weak; do not mistake “what can be done” for “what should be done,” abandoning the people’s will and replacing it with the shallow goals of idle, centrist political partnerships;
3. act with motivation, determination, and public interest; do not fear political reprisal when, as political careers come and go, our broader interests are perpetually at stake and constitute the only purpose your employment serves;
4. engineer a tense relationship between democracy and capitalism; do not allow the demands for profit to saturate our civic institutions, which are dedicated to supporting quality of life for all persons;
5. create meaningful options for financial stability for all people; do not succumb to tradition and convenience by ignoring the basic fact that our nation’s strength is measured by the standard of living of most, not a few;
6. learn a lesson in effective group decision-making; no group can function without trust, commitment, and action; Congress is not an exception – it is the patent example of the losses at stake when basic leadership skills are disabled by the mix of widespread apathy and the irresistible urge to dominate others;
7. be creative; do not cloud your judgment with ambition, arrogance, and false assumptions that paralyze the mission of getting real work done;
8. do something and avoid the tendency to do nothing; do not play it safe and put our collective well-being at risk;
9. recognize that your pursuit of legitimate political gains in 2008 is tied inextricably to the protection of our general welfare and genuine security; do not yield to self-interest, stubbornness, egoism, and corruption; and
10. recall, at all times, your role as an empowered servant of the people of this, and only this, nation; do not misunderstand the scope and limits of your power or impose the nature of it on those whom you do not represent.
In November, some of you announced, prematurely, an agenda identifying the very serious concerns of our country and the role of the national government to address them. If on nothing else, let us agree on this: the origins of your power rest with the people. The agenda, then, belongs to us. Any use of power which is not consistent with our expectations is an abuse of power, the exercise of which will no longer be authorized, pursuant to an enduring American constitutional mandate. While your duty is certainly a noble one, it is, at its core, a simple and practical task. We ask you to govern and, by this, we mean to govern responsibly — or not at all.
Thank you.
Nancy O. Gallman & Phillip Barron
Durham, NC
