On Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 4 p.m. in the Carl Grant Events Center, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti participated in a Q&A concerning “The American Constitution and the Continuing Role of the States” to commemorate Constitution Day.
Skrmetti addressed the divide between state and federal governments, judicial interpretation of the Constitution, federalism, concentration of power and the effectiveness of checks and balances in our country today. He touched on different examples of how our country functions differently now then it did when the Constitution was first ratified and discussed what that means for the American people.
“The whole system was set up to avoid the concentration of power, and to make sure that different pieces of the system, whether within the federal government, within the state government, to keep anybody from being too powerful,” Skrmetti said. “But there’s an increasing demand for efficiency and results, and an increasing disdain for the process and restraints that’s just endemic throughout society.”
During the Q&A, Katie Mullins, a senior political science major, asked Skrmetti about his recent win against the United States Supreme Court in June upholding Tennessee’s law restricting gender-transition interventions for minors. Skrmetti emphasized that Tennessee was the first state to win in favor of protecting minors from undergoing gender-affirming medical procedures.
“It’s important for any campus of any amount of students to care about the federal and state divide,” Mullins said. “It’s what’s comprised some of the most divisive issues of our nation from the time of its founding to even now. As good civic servants, we are called to be aware of what’s going on around us.”
Union University has marked Constitution Day for 16 years, and many students and faculty continue to attend the event, including Seth Brake, professor of political science.
“It’s about bringing the decision makers to the students and making sure that the students understand that the leaders can be accessed, and this is the conversation we can have,” Brake said. “When you’re in college and you’re studying these things, this is the time to have those conversations that can get you information directly from these people who involved the decisions.”
Constitution Day remembers the writing and signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.
