Like most Americans, I don’t wake up thinking about the Constitution. Most of us are thinking about groceries, rent, our kids, their jobs, just the day-to-day things that we have to do to survive. But there should be one thing that nearly everyone agrees on: if you swear an oath to the Constitution, you should keep it. No excuses. No party loopholes. No hiding behind talking points. An oath is supposed to mean something. When members of Congress stop honoring it, the consequences don’t stay in Washington. They land on all of us. Over the last several years, a large block of lawmakers has repeatedly failed to carry out the basic duties the Constitution assigns to Congress. This isn’t about party or ideology. It is about whether the people we elected are doing the job the founder gave them, as prescribed by the Constitution. The truth is simple: when Congress stops doing its job, America pays the price. 

Congress has a job, and it just isn’t doing it. The Constitution gives Congress a clear set of responsibilities: to check the president, to control federal spending, to approve wars, to certify state-verified election results, and to investigate wrongdoing within the government. These duties are not optional. They are the core of Article I, the part that the founders wrote first because they believed the Congress, the voice of the people, should be the strongest branch. In recent years, Congress has repeatedly stepped aside, looked the other way, or chosen party loyalty over constitutional duty. The results are showing up in ways our founders never imagined and in ways Americans can feel.

After the 2020 elections, states red and blue certified their election results. Courts rejected every fraud claim. The Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud. Yet 147 members of Congress still voted to throw out those state-certified results. You don’t need a law degree to understand the danger. If Congress can toss out any state's results, it can do it again. If our election results only count when one side approves of them, then the election stops being an election. That should never be a partisan argument. It is a constitutional one. That document that they all swore an oath to.

Oversight has collapsed, and we are all paying for it. Congress is supposed to keep watch over the Executive Branch. That is how the founders designed the system. When federal agencies ignore spending laws, redirect money without approval, and take actions that courts later ruled illegal, Congress didn’t hold hearings. It didn’t demand answers. It didn’t do its job. If nobody is watching the store, things go missing. And this case is one of the things that went missing: accountability. 

Congress has always been the branch of Government that can declare war. That is what the Constitution says, not the president, but Congress. In recent years, Congress has allowed the president to act without a vote, without a debate, and without the American people having a say. This includes U.S. operations involving Venezuela, where our forces destroyed Venezuelan boats during maritime missions that were in international waters and posed no threat to the United States. These military actions and threats occurred without specific congressional authorization. They even kidnapped the Venezuelan President.  Congress didn’t hold hearings. It didn’t vote. It didn’t assert its authority as it had under the Constitution. When Congress won’t do its job, any president can drag the country into a conflict without public consent, just like we are seeing now. That is not how the founders designed the system. 

Are we already feeling the consequences? I would have to say yes. People don’t need a civics lesson to know that something is off. Most of us can feel it. We have a dysfunctional government, shutdown threats, delayed services, slower Social Security processing, and stalled veterans’ benefits. These are all symptoms of a Congress that can’t or won’t govern. We have economic instability because of how the markets are reacting to the political chaos. When Congress can’t pass budgets to manage the basics, prices rise, retirement accounts wobble, and uncertainty spreads. And what this has led to is an erosion of trust. To retain power, lawmakers cast doubt on elections without evidence, and the result is that the public loses faith in the system. Our elections are now a fight and not a decision of the people. Why? Because one president wants unrestrained executive power. When Congress won’t check the president, major policies can change overnight. Agencies become less accountable. Rights become less stable or even disappear. Foreign policy is also at risk. We now have an unauthorized military action taking place in Iran. Without Congress, the people had no say. Yes, we are already feeling the consequences. They are happening now.  

This is corruption, even though Washington won’t call it that. Most Americans use a simple definition of corruption. It is abusing public office for personal or partisan gain. By that standard, much of what we are seeing in Congress now qualifies. But Washington uses a narrow legal definition, bribery or explicit quid-pro-quo, which excludes most of the behavior that is actually harming the country. Other democracies call this what it is: corruption of duty, corruption of institution, and corruption of oath. The United States should, too. 

Other democracies have already built systems that protect the public from exactly this kind of institutional decay. Australia and Singapore have independent anti-corruption agencies. These bodies investigate lawmakers and don’t need permission from other lawmakers. The U.K. has strict transparency rules. This results in real-time disclosure of gifts, meetings, and outside income. Canada has independent redistricting. No gerrymandering. This forced lawmakers to appeal to a broader electorate rather than partisan bases. Countries like France limit campaign finance by placing reasonable caps on spending and donations to reduce donor-driven corruption. Sweden has what some may call Radical transparency by making all government documents public by default. South Korea has penalties for dereliction of duty. In South Korea, abusing office or obstructing constitutional processes carries consequences. Reforms like these will not weaken democracy but will strengthen it.

One thing that probably needs the most reform is our media. A broken media system makes corruption easier. Other countries have guardrails that the United States does not have. Independent public broadcasting like the BBC and CBC. Truth in media standards requiring corrections. Transparency about political ads. Limits on foreign influence. Also, support for local journalism, which I think is badly needed. Reforms aren’t meant to silence the truth. They protect the public's right to accurate information. Social media must also be held to stricter standards that ensure accurate information and not the lies from foreign bots like we see today.

Americans can disagree about policy. That is what democracy is about. The constitution is the foundation that makes disagreement possible. But when lawmakers stop honoring their oath, the whole system weakens. When that happens, you and I pay the price. Other democracies have done a better job. The United States can do a better job, too, and the result would be a more united nation. The oath of office should mean something, and it's time we built a system where it does.