By Deseret News Sep 28, 2016, 12:15am MDT

Rob Porter, For the Deseret News

In an election cycle dominated by outrageous personalities and unrelenting scandals, many Americans long for a return to the principles that underlie our politics. Conservatives have increasingly turned to the Constitution as a guide for their critiques of the status quo. Utah Sen. Mike Lee, for example, has written a useful book outlining strategies to reinvigorate certain discarded constitutional standards.

Last weekend’s celebration of Constitution Day provided a timely opportunity to reflect on our nation’s founding charter. For the Constitution to reclaim a central place in our politics, however, a majority of Americans must be persuaded that it offers a compelling blueprint for national renewal. Put simply, if the Constitution is to be regarded as the solution, we must first identify the most pressing problems and show how a revival of constitutionalism will best address them.

America’s well-being is increasingly threatened by a government that exceeds constitutional dimensions. The federal government has become too big, attempting to provide for every need and to right every perceived wrong. Such efforts often discourage individual initiative, displace the traditional role of families, crowd out private charity and weaken civil society. The federal government has also grown too intrusive, mistakenly seeking to regulate virtually every aspect of life and criminalizing too many (often morally innocent) actions. This overreach diminishes individual liberty, stifles innovation and limits economic opportunity.

Fundamentally, the federal government has become irresponsible, taking on unsustainable levels of public debt, enacting entitlement programs it cannot fund and making promises it cannot keep. This recklessness threatens our short-term prosperity and jeopardizes the prospects of future generations. At the same time, the federal government is increasingly unaccountable, guided by unelected bureaucrats with vast powers that leave few means of redress for those whose rights are violated or whose interests are ignored. Such unrepresentative and unchecked authority is inconsistent with our democratic values and leaves many citizens feeling powerless and disengaged.

Since federal overreach has become so detrimental, returning to constitutionally limited governance would bring great benefits. As we learned in high school civics class, the Constitution defined the proper purposes and essential limits of federal authority. It established a national government of certain delegated and specifically enumerated powers, carefully leaving room for local governance and largely self-directed communities. It specified only a few legitimate aims of federal activity — things like providing common defense and securing the blessing of liberty — clarifying that government was itself created to safeguard pre-existing individual rights. It structured federal authority into three separated branches to protect against unchecked power and to ensure political and legal accountability.

Although most Americans are familiar with these basic constitutional principles, we are increasingly governed by federal authorities who either ignore or seek to subvert them. Many in Congress willingly grant legislative authority to unaccountable administrative agencies. Executive officials routinely circumvent statutory directives in order to impose ever-greater regulatory burdens. Courts now often refuse to enforce meaningful legal constraints.

Especially with a judiciary increasingly dominated by judges less attuned to the Constitution’s text and original meaning, legalistic constitutionalism is insufficient to address federal overreach. Instead, it falls mostly to citizens and elected officials to protect and promote constitutional goals. What, then, are those who care about the Constitution to do?

Our main task is political rather than legal. We must seek to advance arguments and policies that point in the direction of restoring the Constitution’s balance and promote the kind of government it was designed to create.

First, we must convincingly show how federal overreach diminishes opportunities and damages communities. Only then will fellow citizens see that unrestrained government is a threat to liberty and recognize the wisdom of constitutional boundaries.

Second, we must resist unwarranted national encroachments, seeking instead to strengthen families, neighborhoods, voluntary associations and institutions of local self-governance. State governments can serve as rallying points for opposition to federal excess, joining with other states to vindicate their rightful role in our constitutional system.

Finally, we must actively promote constitutional values like individual rights, respect for civil society, democratic accountability, and representation aimed at the common good. In particular, constitutionalists should insist that government initiatives promote rather than weaken industriousness, personal responsibility, innovation, and the other virtues of liberty.

Rather than merely criticize courts and bureaucrats who fail to respect formal constitutional limits, we must use the wisdom of the Constitution as a guide for proactive political action.

Rob Porter is chief of staff for Sen. Orrin Hatch and a fellow at Georgetown Law School. The views expressed here are his own.