The Bizarro World of the U.S. Constitution

C-Pol: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics ^ | February 19, 2009 | Tim T.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Vince Leibowitz, who runs the left-wing Texas politics website Capitol Annex, writes for Pegasus News:

A bizarre House Concurrent Resolution filed Tuesday by three members of the Texas House of Representatives would have the state claim “sovereignty” under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution over every power not specifically authorized the federal government in the U.S. Constitution and demands that Congress repeal any law requiring “states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.”

Although the resolution, HCR 50, has no force of law whatsoever and, if passed, amounts to no more than an toothless demand made of congress on fancy paper sent by the Secretary of State, it could send the lower chamber of the legislature into a dizzying turmoil were it to ever hit the floor.

I can understand why Mr. Leibowitz considers the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be bizarre. Think about it: in all of your years in grade school (especially if you went to public schools) and college, how many times did you ever hear the Tenth Amendment even mentioned, much less explained?

Many areas of the Constitution are no-go zones nowadays. The Tenth Amendment has long been walled off and hermetically sealed in some sub-basement of one of those zones.

The Texas resolution is little more than a symbolic protest of the fact that the federal government has essentially demolished a great number of the meaningful constitutional limits on its power. Once free of those limits, the federal tentacles have spread into just about every aspect of life in this country -- such as governance, commerce, health care, and even our choices about how we spend our personal time. This is evidenced by Leibowitz' sample list of federal programs that would be threatened if Congress went bizarre itself and submitted to the demands of HCR 50.

The limits of the Tenth Amendment probably could not be restored without an extremely long, painful and disruptive process of destruction and reconstruction that the citizens of this country -- regardless of political alignment -- have absolutely no stomach for.

I'm sure the sponsors of the HCR 50 know this. Perhaps they are like me, indulging every once in a while in some nostalgia about an America that is gone forever.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Unfortunately, the Tenth Amendment has been Null and Void since Abraham Lincoln.

[rellimpank]

—good post. Unfortunate that concern for the Ninth and Tenth Amendments didn’t surface about seventy years ago, when it might have done some good—

[A.Hun]

FDR’s fault!

http://www.nlrb.gov/about_us/overview/national_labor_relations_act.aspx

[ChrisInAR]

God bless them!

Ya see, the GOP needs to nominate people like THESE gentlemen for President....NOT neocons such McCain, Rudy, Romney, Grahamnesty, Bush I, Bush II, Dole, etc., etc., etc.

You had your chance last year w/ Rep. Ron Paul, but YOU BLEW IT!

[ChrisInAR]

Unfortunately, the Tenth Amendment has been Null and Void since Abraham Lincoln.

No wonder why Obama holds him in such high regard!

[WayneS]

Think about it: in all of your years in grade school (especially if you went to public schools) and college, how many times did you ever hear the Tenth Amendment even mentioned, much less explained?

Twice.

[ChrisInAR]

I’d go back even further, back to progressives such as the land-grabbing Teddy Roosevelt & “he kept us out of war” Woodrow Wilson.

The Sons of Liberty has a point, however: Abe Lincoln may be where the destruction of the 10th Amendment actually began in earnest.

[Dead Corpse]

Pretty much. Then again, people thought the world was flat for the better part of a thousand years.

You are never too old, as an individual or as a society, to figure out where you went wrong.

[A.Hun]

Abe Lincoln may be where the destruction of the 10th Amendment actually began in earnest.

That is true, but the SC under FDR are the ones that codified it by applying the Commerce Clause to everything that happens in the US, detouring around the 10th.

That's the basis for the NLRA.

[OneWingedShark]

> That is true, but the SC under FDR are the ones that codified it by applying the Commerce Clause
>to everything that happens in the US, detouring around the 10th.
>
>That’s the basis for the NLRA.

Well, if it makes you feel better the USSC should have come to the end of their terms [they serve for life] when they declared that eminent domain DOES cover taking someone’s private property and handing it over to another private entity.

Nothing good comes of calling the unjust just and the just unjust.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Twice.

How was the topic presented in those two incidents?

[A.Hun]

Well, if it makes you feel better the USSC should have come to the end of their terms [they serve for life] when they declared that eminent domain DOES cover taking someone’s private property and handing it over to another private entity.

One of the worst rulings...ever. Really a sad day for America.