The Tea-ranny Of The Majority Wants To Repeal The Federal Government

As I said yesterday the goal isn't to get crazy stuff like a constitutional amendment allowing states to repeal federal laws passed, it's to prevent the debate on our politics from ever moving an inch to the left.

The same people driving the lawsuits that seek to dismantle the Obama administration’s health care overhaul have set their sights on an even bigger target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a vote of the states to overturn any act of Congress.

Under the proposed “repeal amendment,” any federal law or regulation could be repealed if the legislatures of two-thirds of the states voted to do so.

The idea has been propelled by the wave of Republican victories in the midterm elections. First promoted by Virginia lawmakers and Tea Party groups, it has the support of legislative leaders in 12 states. It also won the backing of the incoming House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor, when it was introduced this month in Congress.

Like any constitutional amendment, it faces enormous hurdles: it must be approved by both chambers of Congress — requiring them to agree, in this case, to check their own power — and then by three-quarters of, or 38, state legislatures.

Still, the idea that the health care legislation was unconstitutional was dismissed as a fringe argument just six months ago — but last week, a federal judge agreed with that argument. Now, legal scholars are handicapping which Supreme Court justices will do the same.

The repeal amendment reflects a larger, growing debate about federal power at a time when the public’s approval of Congress is at a historic low. In the last several years, many states have passed so-called sovereignty resolutions, largely symbolic, aimed at nullifying federal laws they do not agree with, mostly on health care or gun control. 

The repeal amendment is the new unreachable goal for the wingnut right, just like all the other constitutional amendments that fell by the wayside:  amendments preventing flag burning, abortion, gay marriage...but it gets the wingnuts out and gets them to open their wallets to give.  It also pushes the debate further to the right, to the point where openly questioning if we should even have a federal government, and murmurs of secession from the union are growing.

It's a dangerous game to play, but that doesn't matter to some on the right.  Some 150 years ago very similar arguments were made in a much more violent fashion.  If the wingnuts can't have the country they want, then there won't be a country at all, it seems.