To the editor:

The current movement by the group of Limbaugh loonies in our Legislature (in cahoots with the attorney general) to refuse to do their duty unless they can change the Kansas form of government is profoundly un-American.

From the beginning, a fundamental characteristic of our American form of government was the existence of a written constitution. We were the first country in the world to adopt such a radical measure. England, from which we derived most of our legal institutions, did not have – and still does not have – a written constitution. A necessary feature of a written constitution is that someone must have the ultimate power to determine what that document means. There is one branch of our government whose primary function is determining what laws – written and unwritten – mean: the judiciary. That is why the U.S. Supreme Court in 1803 assumed the power to tell the executive and legislative branches that they had acted contrary to the constitution, and why the other branches readily accepted the court’s power of judicial review. That fundamental principle of Americanism has lasted to this day. That is the model of government adopted in all 50 states.

The notion that the Legislature should be free to do whatever it wants, whether or not it comports with our constitution, is contrary to this most fundamental principle. It is un-American.

Robert C. Casad,

Lawrence