Make democracy safe again by aiding 2022 campaigns of those who support the rule of law

A few weeks ago, the Lacey City Council made a tough decision to uphold its current zoning laws to allow a gas station to be built across from a neighborhood park. Hundreds of citizens had organized to oppose it, and most council members agreed it was an unfortunate location.

However, because the Council was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, its job was to uphold the law, and it did.

Council members then agreed that the controversy pointed to the need to re-examine and revise local zoning laws.

It’s sad that the gas station will be built across from the park. But the underlying problem was the city’s zoning laws, and that’s the problem the council will now address. We hope the angry park neighbors will support that work.

This was a victory for the rule of law, and the integrity of Lacey’s city government. The decision was a tough call, but resisting the pull of populism was the right thing to do.

In the other Washington, the January 6 hearings have highlighted even bigger victories for the rule of law and the integrity of democratic institutions.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Rusty Bowers, and acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, among others, insisted on following the law. Even though they had supported former President Donald Trump, they helped prevent him from stealing the votes of American citizens and overturning an election.

But we’ve also seen some big losses in the Supreme Court. As the dissenting justices wrote in the repeal of Roe v. Wade, “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

Our Supreme Court is now deformed by glaring politicization, and absent further legal action, our nation’s democracy is still in danger from Trump and all who still believe his big lie.

Today, another election season is hurtling towards us, and it’s up to American voters to make democracy safe again.

In our Washington, we are fortunate to have a governor and state legislature that protect women’s sovereignty over their bodies. We need to protect that good fortune. We’ve come to expect a moderately progressive majority on the Thurston County Commission, and responsive city councils. We shouldn’t take them for granted.

But although these state and local governing bodies are the building blocks of democracy, they are a small part of the whole edifice.

At the national level, the next election will determine House and Senate majorities, and thus, the direction of our country. This is where we need to put our shoulders to the wheel.

We may like our own Congressional representatives, but we can act outside of our own jurisdictions. We are citizens of our home towns and our home state, but we are also citizens of our country.

We can help candidates committed to the rule of law and the sanctity of free elections in any state, in any political party. Already, some in our communities are writing postcards and making campaign contributions to support Rep. Liz Cheney’s re-election campaign in Wyoming. Others are supporting honest and beleaguered Secretaries of State, who are responsible for elections, from conspiracy-minded Trumpist opponents.

National protest rallies help build momentum, and there will undoubtedly be more of them as the consequences of the fall of Roe v. Wade spread. We hope the crowds keep growing. But the more mundane email writing, postcard sending, campaign volunteering and phone calling matter even more. Ditto the willingness to make generous and strategic campaign contributions.

We want people all over the country to do what the Lacey City Council did: fix an underlying problem rather than cave in to a loud crowd that wanted instant but illegal gratification.

To make democracy safe again, the underlying problem we need to fix is a national one, and it calls us to think and act nationally.