I am not sure how my testimony went over with the Senators, but I am claiming the support of one familiar face. I found George waiting for me outside of the Dirksen Senate Office Building after the hearing. As a GW professor, this can only be viewed as a good omen. He no doubt wanted to remind the Congress that GW (as opposed to that other local institution) is the only school that was founded on a charter paid for by our first president. George made no comment on the Administrative State but his appearance (in my view) spoke volumes. Sure, Bernie Sanders has that bird that landed on the podium, but I had the ultimate Founding Father appear after testifying on the need to remain faithful to their original constitutional design.
I am not sure if George felt compelled to appear because of my call for nonpartisan reform or my warning about the dangerous rise of a fourth branch in our tripartite system. However, I submit that the message could not be more clear (whatever that message might be). I can only feel sympathy for my friends on the Duke faculty (who can only hope for a chaining smoking James Duke) or the Stanford faculty (who must wait for their railroading Leland Stanford) to appear as moral support. We have our first president and his namesake university, by George.
