Private: Some Conservatives Urging Constitutional Amendments to Sharply Limit Government

It appears not enough, for some proponents of a weak federal government, that a raft of lawmakers was just elected to Congress on calls for severely limiting the reach of the federal government.

During a panel discussion at the Federalist Society's recently concluded 2010 National Lawyers Convention, Michael Stokes Paulsen, a law professor at University of St. Thomas Law School, slammed Washington, D.C. as remaining "in substantial part enemy-occupied territory for those who favor any serious meaningful, permanent reforms that would effectively limit national government," The Washington Post reports.

Paulsen, participating in a panel discussion called, "Enumerated Powers, the 10th Amendment and Limited Government," said the only way to limit the work of the federal government was to hold a constitutional convention. He acknowledged that the idea of a constitutional convention has caused a "split between the buttoned-down, starched-shirt real, true conservative conservatives who fear a constitutional convention and the rabble-rousing, redneck tea party types who say, ‘Yeah, bring it on.'"

The Post's Robert Barnes called the discussion, with several progressive constitutional scholars urging "caution and, judicial modesty," a bit "jarring." That was because the panel discussion followed remarks from the Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who told the gathering that a seriously limited federal government was on its way. McConnell said his colleagues in the forthcoming Congress would work to scuttle funding for the Obama administration's landmark health care law, while working in the courts to diminish it.

Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet, a participant on the Federalist Society panel, pushed back against calls for amending the Constitution, saying, "It's very hard to defend amending the Constitution on the grounds of today's current viewpoint," especially the idea of limiting the ability of federal lawmakers. Tushnet said, "Amending the Constitution to preclude future democratic decision-making, that one's a little puzzling to me."

George Washington University law school professor Jeffrey Rosen, in an article titled "Radical Constitutionalism" for The New York Times, notes that senator-elect Mike Lee of Utah has said the Constitution already allows for the shuttering the Departments of Education, and Housing and Urban Development. As Rosen notes, during his senate campaign, Lee said the Constitution "doesn't give Congress the power to redistribute our wealth." Lee, Rosen continues, also "proposed repealing the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the progressive federal income tax, and called the 17th Amendment, which allows senators to be elected by popular vote rather by state legislatures, a ‘mistake.'

Constitutional Interpretation