Why Repealing the 14th Amendment Is Just Talk

When I was a kid, my mom volunteered to get the ERA passed. She was disappointed (actually, quite pissed) when the Equal Rights Amendment ran out of gas near the finish line.

The ERA was fairly popular, but it couldn’t get past the high hurdle that proposed Constitutional amendments face: Two-thirds of both chambers of Congress must pass it, and then three-fourths of the states have to approve it. There’s an alternative method of approving amendments that involves a Constitutional convention, but that route is less common.

In recent months, we’ve heard that another change to the Constitution is imminent. Yes, conservatives have their hearts set on revoking Amendment 14. This pesky amendment, among other things, establishes that people born in the United States are full citizens. The right wing objects to allowing people to become citizens just because they’re lucky enough to be born on U.S. soil. This has led, supposedly, to the influx of dreaded “anchor babies” that are overtaking our fine nation.

“Anchor babies,” of course, is the charming term for the American-born offspring of undocumented individuals. In conservative circles, eliminating Amendment 14 would prevent pregnant Latinas from crossing the border just so they can give birth to a little American. It would also make it easier to deport whole families, without getting hung up on tiny Juan’s citizenship.

I’ve written before about the inherent contradictions, legal problems, and ethical quandaries that this movement presents. Instead of rehashing those arguments, let’s look at the actual odds of conservatives being successful in their quest to amend the Constitution.

For starters, only one amendment has ever been repealed. That involved our country’s infamous experiment with Prohibition.

The latest addition to the Constitution (Amendment 27) was ratified in 1992. However, this obscure addendum is so historically weird that one cannot count it as a true change. The last time the Constitution was really altered was in 1971, and that was about lowering voting age — an easy passage at a time when 18-year-olds were heading to Vietnam, and some states and federal law had already made the alteration. Especially when one considers that young people have laughably low voting rates, this was hardly a massive change to the make-up of America.

One has to go back to 1964 (when Amendment 24 abolished the poll tax), or possibly even to 1920 (when Amendment 19 gave women the right to vote) to identify a real sea change in the way the country was run.

Conservatives, at least the smart ones, are aware of the overwhelming odds they face in repealing Amendment 14. Do they really think they can do it? And even if they do, they know the process will take years, right?

Of course they do. Many conservatives have no interest in achieving their stated goal. For right-wing politicians, Amendment 14 and the scourge of “anchor babies” is an easy sell to a xenophobic base of voters. The ad campaign practically writes itself. In such cases, they can rile people up, cash in on the votes and/or campaign contributions, and then go about their business. As the blog Latino Like Me points out, this turns the so-called debate over Amendment 14 into “an esoteric discussion being led by politicians who are trying to secure their electability among a small yet vocal fringe of their party.”

So for all the posturing about altering the basic laws of the land, don’t be surprised to see Amendment 14 still intact, decades from now, when all the screaming about undocumented people and “anchor babies” has faded.

Who knows — maybe they’ll have actually passed the ERA by then.

Photo Credit: Cappell Meister