I am embarrassed to admit this but I was completely unaware that yesterday was national Constitution Day, or the day that marked the 227th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution. But at least I can safely count myself as being among the 36 percent of Americans who can actually name the three branches of government that our Constitution created. So while I freely admit that I was unaware of the significance of yesterday, thankfully I’m not forced to suffer the embarrassment of being too stupid to name the three branches of my government.
And it’s also according to a new survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center that it would seems that a rather significant percentage of Americans are long overdue for some sort of a civics refresher course. Because it’s only 38 percent of Americans that know the Republican Party controls the U.S. House of Representatives, while 17 percent think Democrats are still in charge. The number of people who knew Republicans were in charge has dropped 17 percent since the last time Annenberg asked, back in 2011, right after Republicans reclaimed control.
And it would be an identical number, 38 percent, who are actually aware that it’s the Democrats who run the Senate, while 20 percent actually believe that it’s the Republicans who control the upper chamber. Only 27 percent know it takes a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto. Annenberg released the survey in partnership with the Civics Renewal Network, a group of 25 nonpartisan organizations including the Library of Congress, the Newseum and the National Archives that offers free civics education resources.
Other groups, like the Civics Education Initiative, are pushing to include more civics education in high schools, requiring students to pass the same citizenship test that immigrants do when they come to the U.S. That group will introduce legislation in seven states that would require passage of the citizenship test before graduating. They cited Annenberg’s 2011 survey, which found just 15 percent of Americans could correctly identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, while 27 percent knew Randy Jackson was a judge on American Idol.
And it was only 13 percent who knew that the Constitution was signed in 1787. And that would be the very same Constitution which are told that, as a ’senior lecturer’, Barry was assigned the responsibility of instructing those under his charge of the benefits and the meaning behind this most perfect document ever created by man. And is the same Constitution which he and his fellow Democrats feel no responsibility whatsoever to abide by. So is it any wonder that the country is in such bad shape. We must change course, and very soon! Time is running out!
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