Nov 092010
The Press tends to present the American Tea Partiers as a bunch of crazy people, at worst, and odd, at best.The truth is the Tea Partiers raise a number of constitutional questions that were of concern at the United States founding. Fourteen states presently agree and have taken legal action against the federal government charging that aspects of President Obama’s health care program (often referred to as Obamacare) are unconstitutional.
The nation’s founders were fearful that any number of ‘factions’ might gain control and impose their will on the people. They purposely designed the federal government so it would be difficult to accomplish anything and thus protect it against ‘factions’. Distrust of government is in the American dna.
Two documents address government powers, procedures and structure: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which contains amendments to the Constitution.
In the areas it covers, the Constitution assumes the national superiority over the states (the United States is a federal republic). On the other hand, the Bill of Rights creates protections from the national government (free speech, no state religion, right to petition, etc.) And the 10th Amendment, in a way, protects the states from the national government: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States in the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people’.
Thus, Americans argue over the meaning of and conflicts between the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as the tension between the national government and the states concerning what powers are vested where.
To unfairly stereotype, one might suggest that Republicans generally believe the founders’ documents to be (like the 10 Commandments) inviolable and Democrats believe they are ‘living’ documents that can be reinterpreted with the times.
Adding to the fray is that fact that each state has its own legal system. There sometimes are disagreements as to whether a federal or state law applies in a given situation. That also occurs between states. What is legal in one state may not be legal in another. A simple example is laws that regulate how you drive your automobile. More significant examples are water law, inheritance laws and taxes. The legal system of forty-nine states is based on English law. Louisiana’s, however, is based on French law. These differences are why a lawyer in, say, Kansas, only can practice law in Kansas. If he wants to practice in Missouri, he must pass the Missouri bar examination.
The Tea Party has no formal organization or structure. It consists of citizens who rose to express their shared concern about the national debt, failures to abide by the Constitution and, in the case of Obamacare, the dealmaking to get senators originally opposed to the plan to support it which resulted in some states being more equal than others.
Tea Partiers believe Obamacare violates the Constitution on at least two counts: 1) not all states are treated equally and 2) requires people to buy a product (health care) they may not want. Recent polls show most Americans want Obamacare changed and nearly half want it repealed.
So this month voters expressed an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat sentiment, causing the biggest switch in Congressional seats from one party to the other since 1948. The Republicans also gained control of 19 more state legislative chambers and 23 of 37 contested state governorships. In Wisconsin, for example, the Republicans gained control of all levels of state political power for the first time in 82 years.
Generally, candidates endorsed by Tea Partiers who performed well on the stump were elected and those who didn’t weren’t. If the Republicans overreach during the next two years as the Democrats overreached during the last two years, the Republicans will lose in 2012. Americans want both parties to move from the fringe to the center.
Yes, there are crazies in every political movement, but for the most part, Tea Partiers are another manifestation of the constant conflict between what Americans believe their founding documents tell them and the power of the national government over citizens and states. Agree with them or not, it is a grassroots movement of people who do not seek power and control, but want the national government to play by rules they believe have well served the nation since its beginning.
By Derry Eynon – ‘American Red Dragon’
- – UPDATE –
You may be interested to know that since I wrote the Tea Party piece, six more states joined Florida in legal action against the federal government regarding Obamacare, bringing the total to 20. Virginia is considering a suit of its own and a number of other states where Republicans won key positions are expected to join the fray in January after the the newly-elected take power. The core of the primary case against the federal government, as I noted earlier, is that Obama’s plan requires everyone to purchase health insurance (or be fined). The states think that violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The legal action also accuses the federal government of exceeding its power via Medicaid. The new law has federal mandates that require the states to spend billions of dollars (which a number do not have) to rearrange their health care markets and to pay for the vastly increased number of people who will qualify for Medicaid. (Medicaid serves those who are defined as poor.) The states say Obamacare unlawfully conscripts state officials to do this federal bidding.
In short, the matter is not really about health care. From a legal standpoint, as I noted in the article, it’s about who is vested with the power to do what. Or, to put it in gross terms of the natural wild, who can piss where.
Comments
Another way to understand the Tea Party is to see the two parties in America as expressions of the tension between the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Both Republicans and Democrats have pro-(national) government policies (Constitution) and pro-limited government policies (Bill of Rights). Over the course of the last 10+ years, however, both parties have leaned heavily upon their pro-government policies at the expense of their limited government policies. Obama, Reid and Pelosi have done little to roll back what the Republicans under Bush and have instead grown government on top of what the Republicans have already done. The Tea-Party is a very American reaction to government overreach. They are trying to revive the pro-limited government tendencies of both parties.
The Republicans benefitted in 2010 due to two factors: 1) they were the party out of power 2) the current overreach by government is economic and Republicans have traditionally supported limited government interference in the economy. If both Democrats and Republicans can re-embrace the pro-limited government aspects of their respective parties and minimize their pro-government tendencies they can tap into the Tea Party psyche and succeed.
Sorry not to have contributed – will be back in touch.