On February 26, Maine First District Congressional candidates will discuss with the public their views on whether Congress and the American people have let the U.S. Constitution become impotent and functionally obsolete as Presidential power over our lives and our government has expanded following 9-11 and the Iraq invasion.

Tuesday evening, February 26, 2008, 7 to 9 PM First Parish of Portland Unitarian Universalist Church 425 Congress Street Downtown Portland, Maine

• Has Congress allowed the people’s rights to be subsumed by a supremely-powerful, big-government Presidency?
• Is this consistent with the balance of powers laid out in our Constitution?
• Does this expanded Presidential power enable representative democracy to continue in the U.S.?
• By letting the Presidency take much of its power, has Congress rendered the U.S. Constitution obsolete?
• Is this desirable because the modern age and modern threats need faster responses by a more powerful Chief Executive?
• Is this a very dangerous situation that turns the U.S. into a post-Constitutional autocracy?
• How will Maine’s new First District member of the U.S. House of Representatives respond to this new trend toward overbearing Executive power?

“The Nation” Washington correspondent John Nichols will lead our Congressional candidates and the audience through a discussion of these issues.

Find out how our First District Congressional candidates will deal with this disturbing trend toward a post-Constitutional United States.

Will we reclaim the U.S. Constitution,

or

Will we simply learn to live without the peoples’ controls over “executive” power that the Constitution used to “guarantee”?

Listen, learn, question and challenge.