‘Tenther’ Tea-Publican Senators want to repeal the 20th Century

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A century ago this country permitted child labor and sweatshop labor, and did not regulate the hours and conditions of employment because of U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Kidd v. Pearson (1888) (intra-state commerce), Locher v. New York (1905) (economic liberty and private contract rights), Adair v. U.S. (1908) (labor unions), and Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) (child labor). The Reel Foto: Lewis Hine: The Littlest Laborers (h/t photo).

"Tentherism" is a dormant and long-discredited legal theory today, but tenthers dominated the
Supreme Court from the late 1800s until 1937, when a majority of the
Court finally recognized that national leaders must be empowered to
solve a national economic crisis like the Great Depression.

Now our "Tenther" Tea-Publican Senators want to repeal the advances of the 20th Century. Think Progress reports, 36 Senators Introduce Bill Prohibiting Virtually Any New Law Helping Workers:

More than three-quarters of the Senate Republican caucus signed onto
legislation introduced Wednesday by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rand
Paul (R-KY) that could render it virtually impossible for Congress to enact any legislation intended to improve working conditions
or otherwise regulate the workplace. Had their bill been in effect
during the Twentieth Century, for example, there would likely be no
nationwide minimum wage, no national ban on workplace discrimination, no
national labor law and no overtime in most industries.

Like many Tea Party proposals to neuter the federal government,
Coburn and Paul’s bill is marketed as an effort to bring America back
in line with a long-ago discarded vision of the Constitution. It’s named
the “Enumerated Powers Act of 2013,” a reference to the provisions of
the Constitution outlining Congress’ specific powers, and it claims to
require all federal legislation to “’contain a concise explanation of
the specific authority in the Constitution’ that is the basis for its
enactment.”

The key provision in this bill, however, would revive a discredited
interpretation of the Constitution that America abandoned nearly eight
decades ago. Although the text of the bill is not yet available online, a
press release from Coburn’s office
explains that it “[p]rohibits the use of the Commerce Clause, except
for ‘the regulation of the buying and selling of goods or services, or
the transporting for those purposes, across boundaries with foreign
nations, across State lines, or with Indian tribes.’”

To translate this language a bit, in the late 19th Century, the
Supreme Court embraced an unusually narrow interpretation of the
Constitution’s provision enabling Congress to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states.”
Under this narrow reading, which lasted less than half a century, the
justices said that they would only permit federal laws that regulated
the transport of goods for sale or a sale itself. Manufacturing, mining,
production and agriculture were all held to be beyond federal regulation. [A must read article] This theory was the basis for several decisions striking down basic labor protections, including a 1918 decision declaring a child labor law unconstitutional.

Coburn and Paul’s bill appears to be an attempt to restore the
constitutional regime that prohibited child labor regulation and other
such nationwide regulation of the American workplace. While the bill
does not apply retroactively — so existing labor laws would continue to
function — the bill does allow a procedural objection to be raised
against any new legislation that does not comply with the limits imposed
by the bill. Such an objection could be used to block any most attempts
to enact new workplace laws — such as a bill increasing the national
minimum wage or a bill prohibiting all employers from firing workers
because they are gay. Similarly, Coburn and Paul’s bill could
permanently entrench decisions by the conservative Roberts Court rolling back existing protections for workers — such as a recent decision shielding many employers whose senior employees engage in sexual harassment.

Such an effort to shrink the constitutional role of government until
it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub is consistent with Paul
and Coburn’s records. Last March, Paul praised a particularly infamous
Supreme Court decision empowering employers to ruthlessly exploit their workers. Coburn told a town hall meeting in 2011 that Medicare and Medicaid are unconstitutional because “that’s a family responsibility, not a government responsibility.”

What is somewhat surprising, however, is the sheer breadth of support
for Coburn and Paul’s discredited view of the Constitution within the
Senate Republican Caucus. According to Coburn’s press release, their
bill is cosponsored by “Senators Ayotte (R-NH), Barrasso (R-WY), Blunt
(R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN),
Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), Cruz (R-TX), Enzi (R-WY),
Fischer (R-NE), Flake (R-AZ), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Hatch
(R-UT), Heller (R-NV), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johnson (R-WI),
Lee (R-UT), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Moran (R-KS), Risch (R-ID),
Roberts (R-KS), Rubio (R-FL), Scott (R-SC), Sessions (R-AL), Thune
(R-SD), Toomey (R-PA), Vitter (R-LA), and Wicker (R-MS).”

The Tea-Publican Party is hell-bent on repealing the 20th Century and restoring the exploitation of labor by corporate robber barrons in a new "Gilded Age" of corporate neo-feudalism. These Senators have sold their souls to the devil.