Green Party, the Tenth Amendment, and Governor Perry of Texas 

Greens, the Tenth Amendment and Governor Perry of Texas

The Texas governor, Rick Perry, earlier this month joined Texas state Rep. Brandon Creighton and other sponsors of a bill in support of states’ rights under the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On the surface, it might seem that self-declared conservatives are in accordance with one of the Green Party’s Ten Key Values – a very important one, Decentralization.

I agree with Governor Perry when he says, “I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state.”

It is ironic that he should say this and that he should appeal to the 10th Amendment. The previous President is a leading citizen of his state of Texas. In Bush’s eight years in officce, he pushed policies and administrative directives that deeply and dangerously intruded into the lives of U.S. citizens in every state.  In fact, both Republicans and Democrats, going back many decades, have consistently and relentlessly fattened the Washington bureaucracy to a point where it has truly become “oppressive in its size”, to quote Perry.

There is a part of the Tenth Amendment that he does not mention. The complete language reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Note that last crucial phrase: “to the people”.  Governor Perry doesn’t mention that. He is not really ready to allow “the people” to have the powers not delegated to the United States. He is merely special pleading for his state and using the Tenth Amendment to bolster his anger at government regulation.

Yet it is a bit interesting to find him citing a part of the Constitution that has been all but obliterated in the creeping, and then galloping, abandonment of power to Washington during the past century. 

“Power to the people’ was a battle cry for Cynthia McKinney’s campaign for President last year under the banner of the Green Party. The Tenth Amendment is a very important part of the Green campaign to bring the people back into power in our country.

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