Rep. John Boehner has tasked the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, with swearing in his staff. Justice Roberts, as part of his Constitutional role, swears in the president of the United States, but not his staff. Nevertheless, his Republican credentials seem to impress Speaker-designate Boehner to such a degree that he should be the one who swears in the new speaker's staff. 

Republicans are also planning to have Justice Antonin Scalia —also famously arch-conservative justice with a consistent history of supporting Republican ideas and interests— address the House Republican caucus on the meaning of the United States Constitution. Is it wrong to view this as a coordinated attempt to build a political relationship between Republican members of the Court and Republican officials and staffers in the House of Representatives? 

The Republican party's planned weekly lessons on the meaning of the Constitution, and the proposed rules-change which would require that every piece of legislation include a special clause explaining its Constitutionality, also appears to be politically motivated, with critics saying it appears designed to coordinate and enforce a specific ideological interpretation of the nation's founding documents.  

All legislators should know as much as possible about the Constitution, of course, and the study of the founding document is a noble pursuit. The Republicans should study the Constitution, as should every public servant involved in making substantive policy, let alone law. But to stage the process as a partisan activity is an affront to the concept of Constitutional democracy.

In our system, the law does not have a partisan interest and the process is not supposed to be manipulated to suit partisan interests. The law is supposed to govern according to the general will of the people. Both major parties are supposed to engage in an adversarial but civil discourse in which shared service to the Constitution is the foundational element of the work of governing. 

The Republican party should study the Constitution, but not according to partisan bias or ideology. It should be studied thoroughly as the practical and historical achievement that it is: relevant in different ways at different times, and astoundingly adept at protecting the core ideals of a great democratic society in the face of grave temptations and distortions.