Kevin Roberts the CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and former history professor told The Epoch Times that American citizens have allowed the federal and state executive branches to collect too much power and one way to remedy this imbalance is to teach students about the U.S. Constitution and the founders of this nation.
Roberts said that both Republican and Democrat administrations are guilty of an overreach by the executive branch because leaders have departed from the Constitutional principles, causing an imbalance within the three-branch system set up by the founders.
“I would say over the last 40 to 50 years (presidential administrations) have tended to violate the Constitution, it’s that there’s far too much power concentrated in the executive branch. And there have been some Presidents of both parties who are less guilty of that than others, but it’s been a trend and the reason that that has happened ... is that our elected representatives in the U.S. House, in the U.S. Senate are increasingly fearful of taking hard votes. And so, they allow the unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state of the executive branch to legislate, to regulate,” said Roberts.
Current events including long-term pandemic lock-downs, places of worship being closed, Democrat initiatives to nationalize election laws (H.R. 1, For the People Act), potentially criminalizing a belief in biological sex (H.R. 5 The Equality Act), and possible vaccine mandates are all exposing that constitutional rights are under attack.
“I would fault mightily an administration I admired and helped out informally in terms of policy and that’s the Trump administration, in not being strong enough against the COVID shutdowns,” said Roberts. Adding that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the president is an example of an unelected bureaucrat, regulating.
“They’re (the Biden administration) ignoring on almost every policy issue, the Constitution. I can think of one in particular, I’m here in Texas I think often about the border crisis and immigration,” Roberts said.
“And what the Biden-Harris administration has done is not adhere to the Constitution, which requires them to protect every state. ... If you were to go just south of where I am now in Central Texas and talk to sheriffs, mayors, county executives, Republicans and Democrats alike, they would tell you that the federal government, the Biden administration is not doing its job,” Roberts continued.
The former history professor and president of a Catholic college told The Epoch Times that teaching students, as young as kindergarten through college about the strengths of the Constitution and the founders’ intent is a long-term and necessary goal to limit the power of the government, and which motivated his move into the public policy sector.
“And so, we’ve got to get to a point to kind of connect back to education, where we’re teaching our K through 12 students and college students much more about the Constitution, so that when they—these future generations—are in Congress, presidents, and governors, they understand that power was designed by our founders to be diffused so that it would be limited in the hands of the single person or single administration,” said Roberts.
Roberts will participate in The Epoch Times panel discussion “Defending the Constitution: Why It Matters Now More Than Ever,” which will be comprised of constitutional experts and rights defenders.
He will be hitting on two important points during the panel discussion, first, he will talk about his experience working with the Trump administration, “I saw it firsthand, and that is just the absolute grotesque level and scope of the administrative state, of the deep state,” adding, “That’s the rotten fruit of not adhering to the Constitution and so I want to connect those dots.”
More importantly, Roberts said he will discuss the need to teach about the founding documents and the sacrifices the founders made so Americans can have the freedoms we have today.
“And by that, I don’t mean hollow patriotism, that’s not worth any of us spending time on. But what I’ve learned from teaching every level, from graduate students down to kindergarteners is that none of us can love what we don’t know.”
