I remember, as an adolescent, when my father told me I had to cut the grass in lieu of going to the movies with my friends, I countered by providing him with a list of things I had already completed that day, which included cleaning my room. My father said rather firmly, “you don’t get credit for doing what you should do.”

My father’s response was one of those great nuggets for someone on the cusp of puberty to remember, but for all others, it was merely a stranglehold on the obvious.

But in our corrosive uber-partisan political climate, I need to make an exception to my father’s sober assessment, by acknowledging U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis for his willingness to do what should be done.

In a recently penned op-ed, Tillis, a Republican, has made public his commitment to go forward with bipartisan legislation merging the bills authored by fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sens. Corey Booker of New Jersey and Delaware’s Christopher Coons.

This legislation would prevent special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired without a judicial review process and just cause. This is a bipartisan bill that would remove any hint of chicanery, insuring confidence in our public institutions.

As Tillis noted in his op-ed:
“If the president actually removes the special counsel without good cause, it would likely result in swift, bipartisan backlash and shake the country’s faith in the integrity of our legal system.”

Don’t misunderstand, it is very unlikely that this legislation would ever pass. If it did, the president would surely veto it, and there are not the votes for an override. But the legislation is important because optics in a democratic republic are also important.

Our politics has been reduced to marveling when something occurs that would otherwise be deemed pedestrian. But the ordinary has now become the exception, radical in some cases.

In John F. Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage, he describes the types of pressures faced by senators that potentially make courage antithetical: the pressure to be liked, pressure to be re-elected and pressure of the constituency and interest groups. With the same pressures still in tow, has bipartisan legislation to protect the special counsel from being fired without cause become the Senate’s revised 21st century standard for courage?

In a political climate that has no appreciation for the institutional memory that influences the moment, irony abounds.

Supporters of President Donald Trump have unceremoniously decided the timeframe for the Mueller investigation has expired, as if Whitewater and Benghazi did not exist. Likewise, many of the president’s detractors appear flummoxed that allegations of his sexual impropriety have not peeled away more of his base support, as if we live in a world that did not include Bill Clinton.

What we’re witnessing feels like democratic film noire, shot in an ominous grainy black and white. It is dominated by doom, fear and betrayal. It is a plot based largely on the well-worn axiom “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Regardless of one’s political orthodoxy, nearly 70 percent of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, want Mueller to complete his investigation, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.

Whether the president intends to fire Mueller, the legislation proposed by Tillis et al would take that option as well as the cacophony associated with its prospects off the table.

There are several ways that a constitutional crisis can occur, perhaps the most likely and most preventable is when institutions fail — the inability or unwillingness to do what should be done.

The journey in a democratic society is just as important, if not more so, as the destination. There can be no outcome that produces complete unanimity (there remain those who believe the sagas of Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy reflect miscarriages of justice).

There must always be a greater number who trust the journey if democracies are to survive. For the journey not only dictates the current moment, it also provides the foundation for the next potential crisis. Moreover, we can ill afford to view the journey through the jaundiced eye of uber partisanship.

As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” By combining the polarities of Niebuhr’s observation, Tillis and his cohorts seek to craft legislation that fortifies our democratic guardrails.

It is sad but necessary that our current state demands that we must acknowledge that which should be commonplace, but here we are.

Though my father was correct in that one should not get credit for doing what they should do, Tillis’ intentions reflect the exception to our contemporary rule, because they potentially keep us on the path toward that more perfect union.

Byron Williams

Rev. Byron Williams is one of the leading public theologians in the nation. He is a columnist, author, and adjunct professor at Wake Forest University. He is also host of the NPR-affiliated broadcast The Public Morality. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism, 1963: The Year of Hope and Hostility, and the forthcoming The Radical Declaration: An Enlightened Ideal Learn more >