From Dr. Randy Barnett in the WSJ’s Opinion pages this morning:
In response to an unprecedented expansion of federal power, citizens have held hundreds of “tea party” rallies around the country, and various states are considering “sovereignty resolutions” invoking the Constitution’s Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For example, Michigan’s proposal urges “the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States.”
While well-intentioned, such symbolic resolutions are not likely to have the slightest impact on the federal courts, which long ago adopted a virtually unlimited construction of Congressional power. But state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.
Now, Dr. Barnett’s suggestion of a new Constitutional Convention would be scary in two directions. Not only could you not control what was being changed – after all, that’s how we got our original Constitution in the first place, when delegates met to amend the Articles of Confederation and ended up tossing the whole thing out altogether – but, the threat of one would definitely put the fear of God into the elected representatives under our current Constitution, who would act to preserve themselves (and their positions) by giving petitioners the amendments that they want. So argues Dr. Barnett.
Read more here. It’s a very interesting read, and definitely food for thought, although there’s a really good chance that many people in the Freedom Movement will disagree with these drastic methods. However, drastic times may require them…
