The following is an excerpt from an article by Karen Lugo, the Director for the Center for Tenth Amendment Action. You can read the full article here.
Americans are considering new constitutional amendments to address federal breaches of enumerated power restraints. There are now feeble limitations on massive entitlement programs, chronic deficit spending, overuse of agency directives, and improper executive orders. These abuses of federal authority rise from disregard for the separation between branches of government and the disrespect for the proper balance of power with the states. The constitutional insults reach to the very foundations of America’s societal compact and are deeply felt by citizens as loss of opportunity, liberty, property prospects, and economic freedom.
The American Constitution has stood strong during tests of domestic conflict, international war, and economic crisis. None of the convulsive events that shook American society to the core have wreaked direct damage on the Constitution. It has been the disregard of politicians and judges for the Constitution’s principled foundations that has undermined its guarantees of liberty and state sovereignty. What the American Constitution will not survive is the slow erosion of its underpinnings by incremental disregard and cumulative modifications.
The constitutional reinforcements proposed thus far by the states express intent to require a balanced federal budget, limit the terms of congress-members, and restrict Washington’s regulatory power. Where the Constitution may have spoken implicitly on these concerns, politicians and courts over time have re-shaped the meaning of the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Spending Clause to alter the nature of government’s role in the life of individuals and functions of the states. Now citizens through their states are employing a constitutionally provided Article V amendment mechanism to restore the boundaries between the private and government domains.
Whether structural limitations on government should be re-asserted through the ballot box or through constitutional measures is part of the debate. The movement behind the constitutional route asserts that the problem is larger than elected officials can or will address. This movement sees that the structure has been so eroded that it cannot provide the critical curbs on federal power and ambition. They also point to a demonstrated lack of congressional will to reduce its own power or to curtail presidential overreach.
Read the rest of the article here.
