Kevin Frazier will join the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University as an Assistant Professor starting this Fall. He currently is a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court.
A republican government rests on a critical assumption: that the public’s virtuous traits and, in particular, the virtues of elected officials will outweigh the “degree of depravity” in humankind. In other words, virtue is at the heart of a representative government--at least according to Federalist Paper No. 55.
The Founders did not shy away from discussing virtue and politics in the same breath. They assumed that the people would elect virtuous officials and, in the event that a dishonest, immoral, or corrupt official took office, political leaders in the Revolutionary Era developed checks to ease the removal of such officials. Pennsylvanians and Vermonters, for example, created Councils of Censors that assessed whether the legislative and executive branches of government performed their duty as guardians of the people. Violations of such duties could result in censure and impeachment.
At some point the public stopped assuming politicians possessed any more virtue than everyone else. People today perceive politics as a realm where mudslinging goes further than deliberating, where the perfectibility of humankind loses out to the possibility of greater power in the hands of fewer individuals, and where those most willing to sacrifice their morals will have the easiest time of getting ahead. Two-thirds of Americans say that the statement "most politicians are corrupt" describes the U.S. well, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center poll. The perception of corruption has had a corrosive effect on our democracy.
The absence of virtue in the political arena is a major problem. The devolution of politics into a WWE wrestling match makes it easier for opponents of any law to question the intentions of the law’s proponents and, therefore, the legitimacy of the law and our system of government as a whole. Consider that the same 2020 Pew poll that revealed the public’s concerns with corruption also exposed the public’s increased willingness to drastically reform our system of government. More than two-thirds of Americans agreed that the U.S. political system required "major" changes and a sizable group—about a fifth—asserted that our political system should undergo a complete reformation.
Thankfully, the Council of Censors of the past provide the present with a model for how to provide a check on corrupt politicians. The Pennsylvania Council of Censors included 24 citizens who had been elected from districts around the state. Councilors served single, seven year terms. As mentioned, the Council could censure public officials and order impeachments, in addition to possessing the authority to recommend the repeal of legislation, and if required, call for a Constitutional convention.
A modern improvement of this Council would eliminate the election of Councilors and instead rely on a stratified random sample to select a representative body of the public to evaluate the behavior of their officials. Selection by a sort of lottery process would reduce the odds of partisan bias influencing Council decisions and provide the Council with more legitimacy on the basis of having a wide range of views and backgrounds on the Council. Whether a modern Council should have the same powers as those in Pennsylvania and Vermont is a question for another article. At a minimum, the Council should evaluate if elected officials veer too far from the public’s perception of virtue.
Opposition to morality mixing with governance is understandable. After all, who gets to choose which morals serve as the standard for assessing what qualifies as “good” political behavior? Some may understandably fear that a focus on refining the character of citizens and improving their virtue will open the door to undue influence by religious thinking. Others may argue that a focus on morals and virtue will further pull the country into culture wars that limit our ability to wage battle on more pressing fronts such as income inequality, climate change, and distrust in democratic institutions. This is another reason why a random sample of everyday citizens is the best approach - diverse Councilors would encapsulate the values and morals of the entire community.
Virtue has a place in our politics. Ethical leadership should not be hard to come by in D.C. nor in any state capitol. The modern adoption of Councils of Censors could revive an assumption of the past: that politics can and will bring out the best in our community.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.