The Center for Constitutional Studies (CCS) held its annual Constitution Day conference Sept. 17, 2024, in the Clarke Building on UVU campus. The theme of the conference was “Parties in the USA: Does Partisanship Undermine the Constitution?”

Before an audience of nearly 500 in their morning keynote address, Verlan Lewis and Hyrum Lewis, co-authors of The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America, discussed how a healthy two-party system contributes to the American constitutional tradition.

“The meanings of ‘left’ and ‘right’ are constantly evolving, along with our two major parties,” explained Verlan Lewis. “Words have consequences. There is no coherent, enduring, historical philosophy binding together [‘left’ and ‘right’] issue positions. Instead, let’s talk about ‘Democrats’ and ‘Republicans.’ That implies groups of people who have decided to work together to achieve certain common ends. That’s healthy for our politics. And it’s a false idea that one party must be correct about everything, and the other party is wrong about everything.”

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