Featured photo courtesy of the Office of Georgia Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook (D-Savannah)
April 29, 2025 — Americans long ago rejected the notion of a divinely ordained leader in favor of the idea that, for power to be legitimate, it requires the consent of the governed. Our forebears understood that a stable system of rules and laws based on principles that apply equally to all–not on the arbitrary whims of those holding power at any given moment–is our only protection against tyranny. Since our founding, the rule of law has formed the very cornerstone of our constitutional republic.
Our faithful nurturing of the rule of law has enabled our businesses to lead in innovation and entrepreneurship; our scientists and doctors to contribute to the ongoing continuum of human health and progress; our artists, scholars and writers to inspire through critical thought and robust intellectual debate; and all of us to enjoy freedom and the opportunity to prosper.
American democracy depends on our faithful adherence to the Constitution’s design: three separate, co-equal branches of government that specifically and intentionally limit the power of any one branch. Yet, the Executive Branch is now poised to devour the other two branches of government before our eyes. President Trump has made it unequivocally clear that he will not be governed by constitutional principles, federalism, or the checks and balances on executive power that are enshrined in our Constitution.
Since returning to office, the President has, for example:
- punished and hindered the work of private U.S. entities, such as research universities and law firms, including for conduct protected by the First Amendment;
- invaded the province of Congress, which holds the power of the purse, by threatening to terminate funding previously allocated, for example, to a number of American research universities;
- threatened and ultimately sued a U.S. state because its governor advised President Trump that her state would prioritize compliance with federal and state law, not the President’s executive order, with regard to intrastate scholastic athletic competition;
- invoked a wartime authority–in the absence of active conflict–to deport and detain in a foreign prison, without due process, more than two hundred foreign nationals;
- deported and detained in a foreign prison, without due process, a Salvadoran national and husband/father of U.S. citizens, who has been charged with no crime and who has been legally granted “withholding of removal” status to remain in the U.S.;
- deported multiple U.S. citizen children without due process;
- deported another U.S. citizen child, whose deportation has interrupted and delayed her ongoing treatment for brain cancer;
- called for the impeachment of a federal district judge who ruled against his administration in court;
- arrested and charged a sitting Wisconsin judge for insisting that ICE agents obtain a judicial warrant and comply with courthouse policy in arresting undocumented immigrants on courthouse property; and
- defied multiple court orders, including, most alarmingly, a unanimous opinion by the United States Supreme Court.
President Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, the legal profession, higher education and academia, a duly elected state governor, and individuals with legal status to enjoy constitutional rights and protections foreshadow broader attacks that threaten all of us.
Legislators are leaders in a co-equal branch of government and have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and steward our nation’s commitment to the rule of law, regardless of partisan alliances or personal affinity toward any particular leader. Yet too many appear unequal to the task of countering the President’s rapacious appetite for power. Some, such as the four Georgia congressional representatives who cosponsored a resolution supporting the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against the administration, have abandoned altogether their duty to check and balance executive power.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon all of us, as citizens first, to confront the threat currently presented by the President’s abuse of power. All Americans must unite in condemning the President’s attacks on the rule of law and the institutions and individuals it protects and redoubling our commitment to stopping the erosion of our form of government and our individual freedoms.
-Representative Anne Allen Westbrook, House District 162
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