Tenthers

American lawmakers who plan to use the Tenth Amendment to block President Obama’s health care reforms.

In the Wall Street Journal, Ashby Jones reported on “The Law-N-Politics Neologism of the Day: ‘Tenther.’” According to Jones:

The term “Tenther,” like “birther,” seems to be mostly used by left-leaning types to describe right-leaners (it has yet to be “reclaimed” by the right). It describes those leaning on the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment to justify the shooting down of new federal legislation in the age of President Obama.

Jones suggested that the term was likely coined by Ian Millhiser, who wrotein The American Prospect:

Indeed, while “birther” conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these “tenther” constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.

Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the “True Constitution,” exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government’s powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama’s health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. …

Tenthers divine all this from the brief language of the 10th Amendment, which provides that “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.” In layman’s terms, this simply means that the Constitution contains an itemized list of federal powers – such as the power to regulate interstate commerce or establish post offices or make war on foreign nations – and anything not contained in that list is beyond Congress’ authority.