The New Tenthers

[sonias]

Texas Tribune 6/8/10
The New Tenthers
Put a Republican candidate on the stump in Texas and chances are the 10th Amendment will come up. In today’s political lexicon, invoking the 10th is the verbal equivalent of flying the "Don’t Tread On Me" flag: It implies the federal government is trespassing on states' rights — and about to suffer the consequences.

(snip)
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank, has also just announced it will open a center dedicated exclusively to 10th Amendment scholarship, with former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who served under Abbott from 2003 to 2008 and clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Scott Brister, who sat on the Texas Supreme Court from 2003 to 2009, at the helm.

(snip)
"It hasn't been taken seriously as a legal matter for 70 years," says Supreme Court historian and University of Texas law professor Lucas Powe. "It's simple. Think of any federal law — does it tax, spend, or regulate commerce? Once you answer yes, the 10th Amendment is out."

Under the 10th Amendment, states reserve whatever powers the Constitution doesn't delegate to the federal government. Determining what those powers are necessarily turns on what the federal government can do. As Powe intimates, the executive branch’s most expansive authority comes under its powers to tax, spend, and regulate interstate commerce. He says those powers — combined with the “necessary and proper” clause, which authorizes the federal government to pass any laws "necessary and proper" to execute its constitutional powers— leave very little regulation outside of the federal government’s wheelhouse.

Powe also points to the 10th Amendment’s unsavory legacy: Before it provided the legal basis to challenge integration laws, it was used to strike down laws limiting child labor and to preserve the institution of slavery prior to the Civil War. "The problem of the 10th Amendment, if taken seriously, is that it leads to a race to the bottom," Powe says. "Which state can do the worst and force other states to do the same thing?"

"Race to the bottom" - Sounds like the repuke playbook all right. :puke:

[white cloud]

1. Perry needs a new Don't tread on me

With swimming pools, dead coyote, gun fight, bp oil spill, and a bank robbery.

[sonias]

2. Perry is a coward though

With a big fear of snakes - so it won't be a snake logo for him.

Perhaps he should just buy himself a bullet proof suit and wear that everywhere.