In their recent Politico article, “Constitution is inherently progressive,” John Podesta (former chief of staff to President Clinton and current president of the Center for American Progress) and John Halpin argue that the “values” of the Constitution are progressive, not conservative, and that conservatives should stop claiming that progressivism is at odds with the Constitution. “Since our nation’s founding,” the authors claim, “progressives have drawn on the Declaration of Independence’s inspirational values of human liberty and equality in their own search for social justice and freedom.”  The progressive “framework” of public-private cooperation, they continue, is “the essence of the constitutional promise of a never-ending search for ‘a more perfect union.’”  In short, the progressive “vision” of the Constitution best represents the American tradition. This argument, which is part of recent progressive efforts to rehabilitate their constitutional bona fides, might come as a surprise to the real founders of progressivism, for while some contemporary progressives might preach a Declaration-based faith and try to get right with the Constitution, early progressives had little use for either document.

According to Woodrow Wilson, what he called the “preface” of the Declaration of Independence—the part about “self-evident truths,” “unalienable rights” given to human beings by the Creator, and the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”—was not the “real Declaration of Independence.”  If you want to understand that, Wilson said, “do not repeat the preface.”  For Wilson, the point of the Declaration—and the Constitution, too—was not the permanence of any principles.  “No doubt,” he wrote, “we are meant to have liberty, but each generation must form its own conception of what liberty is.”  The Founders, early progressives held, wrote for their own time in our first documents, but not for future generations. For Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Croly, Frank Goodnow and other founding fathers of progressivism, the Constitution of the American Founding was an obstacle to be overcome.  Insisting that the Constitution must be interpreted in view of the new but increasingly dominant Darwinian model of constant change, progressives pronounced our Constitution a “living” document.  The Constitution, they believed, is as malleable as human nature itself.  The Founders’ old ideas about separation of powers could be discarded in favor of new and improved notions of “enlightened administration.”

Podesta and Halpin allege that conservatives “often mask social Darwinism . . . in a cloak of liberty,” but in fact it is progressivism whose roots run deepest in the political ideology of Darwinism.  The fittest among us, it turns out, are the bureaucrats, empowered by a Constitution whose original restraints, like federalism and the limitations imposed by enumerated powers, have been stripped by progressives in favor of a more “dynamic” model.

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This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is likely to pass legislation—dubbed the “Better Use of Light Bulbs Act,” or BULB Act, for short, that will repeal the now infamous ban on the incandescent light bulb.

I’ll resist the temptation to offer a “How many congressmen does it take to change a light bulb law?” joke, and just say that any bill that has to reference the definition of “medium screw base” as stipulated in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act is kind of complicated.

Still, the BULB Act is only two pages in length.  And its constitutional justification is simple:  the law enacted in 2007 that put Thomas Edison’s light bulb on course of ultimate extinction is an unwarranted federal intrusion into a matter better left to free markets and individual choice.

Yes, it’s come to this:  Congress must pass a law that undoes another law so that the plain old 100-watt light bulb can survive to see 2012.  (Sixty-watt incandescents are set to dim by 2013, and 40-watt bulbs will be extinguished by 2014).  As of now there is little chance that the Senate—which has gone 800 days without passing a budget, much less a light bulb bill—will adopt the BULB Act.  Even if both chambers pass the Act, there is even less likelihood that President Obama will sign it into law.

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A recent paper, published by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, claims that “exposure to Fourth of July at an early age” makes young people more likely to later vote Republican.

So before venturing out to the local Independence Day parade today, you may want to consider how your kids will cope with “exposure” to this nasty contagion.

If you’re in a red state, you should be extra wary, for as the co-authors assert (without any evidence backing their claim), “Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans.”

Turn around the minivan, and put away the hot dogs—the Independence Day parade might be “politically biased”!

If you do go, you should know that your kid will end up like Dick Cheney. Fireworks can have that effect. Don’t worry, however: Harvard’s here to help.

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When in October 2009 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about the constitutionality of the individual health insurance mandate, her response was a question, twice asked, “Are you serious?” Are you serious?” Lest one think hers was a momentary lapse, Pelosi’s press secretary later reiterated the point by saying of the question about the provision’s constitutionality, “That is not a serious question.”

Madam Speaker, the question posed to you was a serious one.  It is a question so serious, in fact, that it should be question at the beginning, middle, and end of any legislative debate.  It should animate our public conversations, and it should motivate our national legislators to remember the oath they take upon assuming office.  That oath, as follows, is itself serious about the Constitution:

“I, (name of Member), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me God.”

The original oath of office, adopted in 1789, was even more to the point:  “I do solemnly swear (or affirm),” a member of Congress used to say, “that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

In 1838, Abraham Lincoln, not yet 30 years old and still eight years away from his own election to the House of Representatives, said that the Constitution and “reverence for the laws” should “be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;— let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.”

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Picture an incandescent light bulb. This is your country.

Now imagine a compact fluorescent light bulb. This is your country on Progressivism.

What does a country on Progressivism look like? To start with, in the evening hours it’s pretty dim. Have you tried reading at night in a hotel room recently?

With more than 300 million of those little curly-Q fluorescent light bulbs now sold annually, our country is looking a lot less bright. Ever since Congress a few years ago declared that by 2012 Americans needed to be more energy efficient, it’s been out with Edison, in with the EPA. And turn on some more lights—I can’t see a thing!

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Lots of politicians make promises they can’t keep.  Statesmen, by contrast, promise less and deliver more.  Knowing their own limitations and those of the people they serve, they act according to principles, not just promises.

As a presidential candidate Barack Obama promised the American people nothing less than a new nation.   “. . . We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” he said just before he was elected president in November 2008.

Since his victory the president has made very clear his reverence for the idea of transformational leadership.  He has identified “transformative moments” that must be seized,  lauded “leaders who are able to bring about transformative change,” and heralded his administration’s steps towards “a transformation of how government works.”

The president’s efforts to make his idea of “transformational leadership” real are everywhere.  Whether in massive bailouts, sweeping health care reform legislation, an attempt to overhaul the student loan system, or a proposed revamping of financial regulations, the president has sought a transformation of huge swaths of American life with little regard to the constitutionality of these efforts.

Mr. Obama has done all of this while at the same time linking his idea of transformation to the sixteenth American president.  Asked in July 2009 who his heroes are, President Obama singled out Abraham Lincoln for the highest praise.

The president’s admiration both of Lincoln and the idea of transformational leadership is perplexing, because for Lincoln the idea of “transformational leadership” was not just foreign, but something he had to fight.

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