Soon after Texas governor Rick Perry announced his presidential campaign, a few websites, mostly liberal, compiled a list of the constitutional amendments he has at various times touted. He has spoken favorably about amendments to end the lifetime tenure of federal judges, to allow supermajorities of Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions, to repeal the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments (which established, respectively, the income tax and the direct election of senators), to limit federal spending, to define marriage in American law as the union of a man and a woman, and to prohibit abortion.
Liberals responded, either explicitly or implicitly, with a comment that was partly a question and partly a taunt: Why are conservatives, who place so much emphasis on fidelity to the Constitution, so keen on changing it? It is a point they have also made during recent debates over the proposed balanced-budget amendment.
No comments:
Post a Comment