The Tenther movement is a term used to describe a political ideology and a social movement in the United States which espouses that many actions of the United States government are unconstitutional.[1] Adherents invoke the concept that the states share sovereignty with the federal government and with the people by citing the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as the basis for their legal and ideological beliefs:
| “ | 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. | ” |
Adherents believe that political authority enumerated in the United States Constitution as belonging to the Federal Government must be read very narrowly to exclude much of what the national government already does.[2] They argue for the recognition of limited sovereignty of the States.[3] Opponents use the term in order to draw parallels between adherents and nineteenth century states' rights secessionists, as well as the movement to resist Federal Civil Rights legislation.[4]
Some object to the name "Tenther" as it originated as a pejorative used by those opposed to the movement's ideas, in an attempt to reference and draw parallels to conspiratorial movements such as Birthers and Truthers.[5]
Adherents oppose a broad range of federal government programs, including the War on Drugs, federal surveillance, and other limitations on privacy and civil and economic liberties, plus numerous New Deal legislation to Great Society legislation, such as Medicaid, Medicare, the VA health system and the G.I. Bill.[2]
Tenther movement should not be confused with libertarianism, although the two often have similar positions. Whereas libertarians oppose programs such as the War on Drugs on ideological grounds, seeing them as unjustified government intrusion into lives of its citizens, tenthers hold that such programs may be perfectly acceptable but only when implemented by individual states. Libertarians are opposed to sodomy laws and believe that "the government has no business in the bedroom".[6] In contrast, it has been argued by tenthers that the 2003 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated sodomy laws in all U.S. states where they remained, was an unconstitutional federal intrusion into what should have been a states' rights area; from the tenther perspective, "there clearly is no right to sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution" and "the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards".[7]
Many actions of the tenther movement are centered around the principle of "nullification", a legal theory that would allow any state to "nullify", or to proclaim void and inoperative within its borders, any federal law that the state deems unconstitutional, without bothering to challenge said law in the Supreme Court. The nullification doctrine has been broadly endorsed by the Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.[8]
State legislators are proposing resolutions asserting greater autonomy, on the grounds of the Tenth Amendment. A memorial was introduced into the Florida House of Representatives reading, in part, "The Legislature claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution of the United States," but this died in committee.[9] Georgia Senator Judson Hill has proposed that Georgia invoke the Tenth Amendment to withhold any Georgia participation in the proposed national health care program, attempting to enact legislation that would allow Georgians to opt out of federally mandated health care, but this is being challenged and is not scheduled to take effect until 2014, so its long-term effect is unclear.[10]
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi announced late in 2010 that he plans to introduce the "Restoring the 10th Amendment Act," a proposed federal law that would allow states to challenge federal regulations on 10th Amendment grounds.[11] In mid-December 2010, an unsuccessful 2010 secessionist candidate for the Vermont Senate, Robert Wagner [12] of Ripton, VT, announced a petition for legislation [13] to be introduced during the 2011 session of the Vermont General Assembly that would challenge the alleged regulation of the right "to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products within the State of Vermont" by enactment of the Food Safety and Modernization Act, which was passed by the United States Congress on December 21, 2010. [14]
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