I am not a Constitutional Law scholar, but this looks pretty good to me, and very much within the spirit of the Tea Parties:
http://federalismamendment.com/
You can grab the amendment document here:
http://federalismamendment.com/The_Bill_of_Federalism.pdf
These look to be the kind of smaller-government Federal modifications, and ways to more-properly restrict the overreaching Federal government. A short run-down:
- Limits the Federal use of the Inter-State Commerce Clause.
- No unfunded Federal mandates, and no Federal spending on things the Federal government has no power to otherwise regulate.
- Activity occurring entirely within a State may not be regulated by the Federal government.
- States may rescind Federal law when 2/3ds of the States vote to do so. (Is this related to the drug war?)
- No Federal taxes on estates or gifts (the “Death Tax”); repeals existing taxes and denies future implementations of same.
- No Federal income tax; repeals the 16th Amendment, thus ending the income tax and denying future implementations of same. (Excise and sales taxes are explicitly allowed, paving a way for the Fair Tax.)
- Term limits: 2 for Senators, 6 for Representatives.
- Balanced budget veto. This looks like it gives the President a line-item veto power over any budget items that leave the Federal government with more debt than in the preceding budget.
- More explicit protections for the liberties and privileges of the People, both enumerated and unenumerated.
- This one’s the kicker: “[No Judicial Alterations of the Constitution.] The words and phrases of this Constitution shall be interpreted according to their meaning at the time of their enactment, which meaning shall remain the same until changed pursuant to Article V.” Gotta love that.
This would be nice… but I’m not going to hold my breath. There would have to be an uprising of support from within congress like we have never seen before. One thing I wish this proposed text would include is a provision to repeal the 17th Amendment. I’m a firm believer that a good portion of the current problem is due to an over-representation of the populous and an under-representation of the states.
@Stan –
Re “There would have to be an uprising of support from within congress like we have never seen before.”: Fair enough, but seeing the Tea Parties gives me some hope that it might happen. (Some, not a lot.)
Re 17th Amendment: preach the Word.
@stan: “Over-representation of the populous” – in which you reveal a disdain for democracy. People vote, not states. Sorry if that results in “wrong people” (from your perspective) voting.
Secondly, from a practical standpoint I’m not sure what repealing the 17th Amendment would achieve. The Senate is already quite unresponsive to the needs of average Americans, and reverting back to the appointment by state legislatures would hardly improve the matter.
@David: While Stan’s comment may show disdain for the idea of popular democracy, I think it shows proper respect for representative republic. There is a necessary tension between the powers retained by the People in their individual interest, and the powers they delegate to the State and the interest of all within it. As such, the members appointed to the Senate originally represented each State as a whole, while the members of the House were the elected representatives the People. I think the Framers balanced the considerations there quite nicely in forming the Republic.
Senators still represent the entire state as a whole. That hasn’t changed, and of course gives disproportionate power to small states, preserving some the anti-democratic intent of the founders.
The current system of direct election can help curb the tendency towards cronyism in appointments.
If I were to monkey with the Senate, I would reduce their terms to 4 years instead of 6. They should be required to submit themselves to the public scrutiny of elections more often. I’m not sure term limits actually do much, but maybe some common-sense limits would help reduce the tendency of Senators to view their elections as lifetime appointments.
@pmjones: It’s good to see some conservatives around here. I am tired to seeing so many of my favorite blogs go liberal :-P.
I like the changes that are mentioned in the article. I am much more a follower of Jeffersonian government than I am of Hamilton. If for no other reason than the larger the government, the harder it is to control.
Our federal government has become so large and unwieldy that sometimes it seems hard to believe that we can do anything to fix it.
@David: Part of the problem with the people electing senators is that senators don’t have the best interests of the state at heart, which is one of the reasons that the senate exists in the first place.
I believe that term limits would be more effective than the length of the terms. We have too many lifetime senators, and like it or not, incumbents have a huge advantage against those competing.
Could you imagine how different our presidential races would be if we didn’t have term limits… We probably would’ve had Reagan into the 90s… or on the opposite side, we could still have Clinton…