Why isn't there a guardian of the Tenth Amendment?
Asked by
josie (
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August 1st, 2018
The ACLU is sort of “guardian” of the First, Fourth, and Eighth Amendments.
Obviously, the NRA looks after the Second Amendment.
The Third Amendment currently doesn’t invite much debate, and neither do Five, Six and Seven.
But the Tenth amendment seems to be routinely violated by the Federal Government and nobody seems to notice.
Why not?
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4 Answers
The ACLU invokes the Tenth Amendment all the time and was involved in the most important Tenth Amendment case of the 21st century (Bond v. US, which reaffirmed that the amendment protects individual rights and not just states’ rights). They’ve also been involved in several cases helping states assert their rights against the federal government, so you might need to add the Tenth Amendment to your list of amendments defended by the ACLU.
@josie The tenth always seems to run up against the “necessary and proper” and “general welfare” clauses.
Something I forgot to mention is that Tenth Amendment cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court nearly as often as cases focusing on other amendments (especially the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments). This might contribute to the perception that no one is out there defending it, since most people ignore the other federal courts and all of the cases that terminate before reaching Roberts and company.
At this moment I’m more concerned about the 25th Amendment.
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