Long before I flunked out of graduate school, I began to suspect I didn’t have what it took to be a good teacher. One summer back in the 1960s I tutored several UGA football players who had to pass Political Science 101 in order to retain their eligibility. We met evenings in an unairconditioned room in the upper reaches of the Fine Arts Building, looking out over the old track field, where the Tate and Miller centers are now.
Those guys didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t either, but they needed to pass poli-sci, as they called it, and I was paid to help them. The main thing I remember was the difficulty in making the course interesting, especially the interactions of the three branches of government—the legislative, the executive and the judicial—baked into the Constitution. Congress makes the laws, the president executes them, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws. And that structure is repeated at the state level and at the local level. OK. So what?
The three branches lay there on the page, inert. The players’ world was football, filled with challenge and action and striving to win. The division of powers could barely keep them awake.
Recent events have caused me to think of those UGA players. They did pass the course, and one of them went on to play some pro ball. If they are still around, do they ever flash on our long-ago sessions and have an a-ha moment? So this is what Mr. McCommons was trying to tell us.
For my part, I have always remembered them, and I feel that I failed them. What I should have done, I can see so clearly now, is lay it all out in football terms.
Look at it like this: The line is the House of Representatives. You’ve got to have them up there blocking. The backfield is the Senate. They run through the openings set up by the House. The president, of course, is the quarterback. He calls the plays and puts them into action. The referees are the Supreme Court. They apply the rules and assess penalties if there’s an infraction. It all works together. See?
There’s a glimmer of recognition, but they’re still not getting it.
OK, I say, look at it this way. Suppose the quarterback starts calling goofy plays that cost us yardage and leaking his calls to the opponents, and telling the line not to block without his permission and the backfield not to run unless he approves. Suppose the quarterback claims he deserves a fifth down and immunity from the rules, and the refs usually go along with him, and when they don’t, he ignores them and loudly complains to his fans that the game is rigged, and he pockets the ticket money.
Do you see, I would have asked, why all three branches are essential in our government? Now they’re laughing. They may not know much about political science, but they know a joke when they’re being kidded. They’re laughing and shaking their heads. No way, they say. That could never happen. No way the House and Senate would only do what the president told them to do and be afraid he would stir up the fans against them. After all, Mr. McCommons, you just told us those three branches of government are what you call “co-equal,” right?
It’s strange to me how I keep thinking about those guys during this weird time that is proving the fragility of the government structure that used to appear so firmly wrought. And it’s not just the national government, remember.
Just look at what “our” state legislators have done to our local community they are supposed to represent. Years ago they gerrymandered us and split us up into districts where the voices of all Athens-Clarke County citizens are diluted and overwhelmed by submerging us into districts where the rural counties and small towns surrounding us elect our representatives. And those representatives, elected in that way, swooped in and ripped three of our elected commissioners out of their districts and upended our local government to satisfy the conservative businessmen who are trying to wrest control of our town from the majority of our voters.
And now one of “our” legislators, who lives and practices law in Athens, is running for statewide office on a full MAGA platform that offends the majority of Athens citizens. Athens doesn’t matter to him. The integrity of local government means nothing to him. The separation of powers is irrelevant. Only power counts.
So see what the course was all about back then, you guys—wherever you are?
Go Dawgs!
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