14th and 17th Amendment Term Paper

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Amendments

The Tea Party and the 14th and 17th Amendments

At its core, the Tea Party identifies itself as a political faction intended to reduce what it perceives as the tyrannical power of the federal government over the rights of corporations, states and citizens. This is the perspective that underlies the Tea Parties aggressive posturing in recent political affairs and especially its vitriolic hostility toward President Obama. As a part of the Tea Party's agenda, the group has sough permeating reform in governmental structures so as to reduce what is views as central executive and legislative branches with far too much authority over our lives. Within the context of this view, the Tea Party has been especially vocal where certain terms of the Bill of Rights are concerned. The arch-conservative group, recognizing the difficulty of shifting judicial perspective and precedent on Constitutional Law, has instead attempted to push quite simply for the repeal of those constitutional principles that diverge from its belief system. It is thus that the Tea Party has spearheaded the movement to repeal the 14th and 17th Amendments. However, consistent with the general belief system proposed by Tea Partiers, the notion that these Constitutional Amendments should be repealed is both contrary to the democratic underpinning of the United States and carries significant implications of racial, ethnic and ideological prejudice. If the Tea Party is successful in its mission, then it will have also succeeded in driving back American civil rights and individual liberties more than a hundred years. The result would be a significant thrust toward creating a scenario in which states would essentially retain the right to engage in highly prejudicial, racialist and bigoted policy orientation.

Beginning with consideration of the 14th Amendment, one can begin to see a direct connection between the Tea Party's ambition to see it repealed and the Tea Party's pointedly prejudicial social orientation. The 14th Amendment, which calls for Equal Protection of all Americans under the terms of the law, government and from others in the public, was originally conceived as a response to the Dred Scott case and was pointedly intended to reverse the racialist policies denying African-Americans the right to citizenship.

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Its terminology and orientation however would serve to create Equal Protection and the right to Due Process for all Americans. According to the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 on the heels of the Civil War, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (Cornell University Law School, p. 1)

The Tea Party, on the surface, takes particular issue with the notion that the federal document should be empowered to prevent states from making laws independently. From its perspective, the 14th Amendment was at its core inherently unconstitutional because it created a means by which the federal government could override the will of the state. From the perspective of the Tea Party, not only does the 14th Amendment erode critical entitlements to the state, but it also creates a scenario in which the children of immigrants can gain citizenship. According to Kosmonaut (2010), "this is why, on first glance, the Tea Party wants to repeal the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states at any person born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. The argument goes that illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, come to the U.S. To give birth to children who automatically become citizens in order to remain. The language employs the use of the term 'Anchor Babies.'" (Kosmonaut, p. 1)

A closer examination of the concerns expressed by….....

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