The Real Line-Item Veto

THE Constitution is an antitrust act for government. Taken seriously, which means with full weight accorded to every clause, it ensures that each state has sovereignty within a wide sphere. This allows tyrannical possibilities, but it also puts the most effective check on those possibilities: the individual can move from a less free state to a freer one. Federalism, like Adam Smith’s market, creates an “invisible hand” that promotes maximum liberty.

But the Supreme Court doesn’t give equal weight to every clause of the Constitution. It has given the relatively narrow First Amendment far wider scope and force than the Tenth Amendment, which expresses the basic principle of federalism. In effect, the Court already exercises a line-item veto—over the Constitution.

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Joseph Sobran

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THE Constitution is an antitrust act for government. Taken seriously, which means with full weight accorded to every clause, it ensures that each state has sovereignty within a wide sphere. This allows tyrannical possibilities, but it also puts the most effective check on those possibilities: the individual can move from a less free state to a freer one. Federalism, like Adam Smith’s market, creates an “invisible hand” that promotes maximum liberty.

But the Supreme Court doesn’t give equal weight to every clause of the Constitution. It has given the relatively narrow First Amendment far wider scope and force than the Tenth Amendment, which expresses the basic principle of federalism. In effect, the Court already exercises a line-item veto—over the Constitution.