A few weeks ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that “I don’t think the federal government has a role” in education, a position that, if taken literally, would eliminate all federal assistance to low-income students and strip millions of college students of their Pell Grants and federal student loans. At yesterday’s GOP presidential candidate’s forum, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) decided that she wants a piece of that action as well:

The Constitution does not specifically enumerate, nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments. To put that into the federal government, as we saw a Department of Education in the late 1970s, has eviscerated the constitutional understanding that the control of education truly lies with the parents.

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Bachmann is once again revealing that she does not understand the Constitution. The Constitution does not need to specifically mention the word “education” to allow the United States to provide for it because it permits Congress to raise revenues and use them to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” Ensuring that everyone growing up in the United States has the skills they need to become productive citizens clearly fits within this grant of power.

Moreover, it is not even clear what Bachmann is talking about when she claims that the Constitution ensures that “control of education truly lies with the parents.” Although the Supreme Court held in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that states cannot forbid parents from sending their children to private schools, Bachmann seems to think that the mere act of providing federal grants to public schools somehow undermines parents’ ability to raise their children as they choose. If this were actually true, then it’s not clear why state governments don’t also step on parents’ rights when they fund and administer public schools.

But of course, Bachmann doesn’t have any real interest in developing a coherent theory of the Constitution. In Michele Bachmann’s America, there is only one rule: the Constitution says whatever Bachmann wishes it said.

At yesterday’s GOP candidate’s forum in South Carolina, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Princeton professor and anti-gay activist Robert George that she would support an unconstitutional bill attempting to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade:

GEORGE: Would you as president propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment to protect human life in all stages and conditions? [...] Given the clear mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment empowering Congress to enforce the guarantee of Equal Protection shouldn’t Congress act on that now?

BACHMANN: Yes, I believe that they should. [...]

GEORGE: And if it meant a confrontation with the Supreme Court are you prepared for that?

BACHMANN: Most assuredly.

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The 14th Amendment does not just grant certain civil rights protections to all persons in the United States, it also gives Congress the “power to enforce, by appropriate legislation” those protections. So if the 14th Amendment actually did place limits on abortion, Congress would have the authority to pass laws enforcing those limits. Essentially, George wants Bachmann’s legislation to simply declare that the 14th Amendment restricts abortion — despite the Supreme Court’s declaration that the opposite is true — and then piggyback upon this constitutional rewrite to ban abortion outright.

This is an odd suggestion for several reasons — not the least of which is the fact that, if Congress has the power to turn one Supreme Court decision on its head, there is nothing preventing it from requiring mandatory school segregation or prohibiting Democrats from exercising the First Amendment rights. Our Constitution means something because it can not simply be waived away by legislative fiat.

Moreover, George and Bachmann’s proposal doesn’t just thumb it’s nose at Roe v. Wade, it also thumbs its nose at one of the most significant recent decisions limiting congressional power. In City of Boerne v. Flores, the Court held that Congress is not allowed to simply declare that the 14th Amendment means whatever they want it to mean and then use that declaration to pass enforcement legislation — Congress can only pass laws enforcing existing 14th Amendment rights.

Indeed, it is more than a little bizarre that Bachmann — who bases much of her campaign on paranoid fantasies about how “Obamacare” is an unconstitutional assault on America itself — would want Congress to have the power to write its own meaning into the 14th Amendment. If Congress has the power that she and George claims that it does, then there is nothing preventing Congress from simply declaring that the 14th Amendment creates a fundamental right to health care and that the Affordable Care Act enforces this right.

Bachmann loves to rail about the need for limited government, but she has now embraced a constitutional theory that would effectively give Congress unlimited authority by empowering it to declare any right that it wants and then pass legislation enforcing that right. In other words, Bachmann’s support of George’s unconstitutional proposal doesn’t just prove that she doesn’t understand how the actual Constitution works, it provides yet another example showing that she doesn’t even understand how the Tea Party’s fake constitution works.

At a meeting Saturday with a Missouri Tea Party group, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) served up some factually challenged red meat:

U.S. Rep. Todd Akin said he has doubts about the constitutionality of Medicare and thinks global warming “is highly suspect.” [...]

Akin’s remarks questioning the constitutionality of Medicare came as he was explaining his vote against prescription coverage under the medical plan for seniors and people with disabilities. He said it was too expensive, and “it was expanding an entitlement I wasn’t too comfortable with to begin with.”

Asked about the remarks after the meeting, Akin said, “I don’t find in the Constitution that it is the job of the government to provide health care.”

Akin should take a moment to actually read the Constitution before he lectures anyone about what’s in it. Although the Constitution does not include the words “health care,” it does enable our elected leaders to raise revenue and to “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” A national program ensuring when older Americans retire they do not impose crippling health costs upon their families easily fits within this grant of power.

For what it’s worth, Akin also claimed that Medicare cannot simply be repealed overnight “now [that] people have contributed their money to it,” but his actions reveal that he has every intention of eliminating this crucial program for America’s seniors. Akin — along with nearly every single one of his fellow House Republicans — voted for Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to phase out Medicare.

Moreover, Akin’s bizarre reading of the Constitution is increasingly common amongst his fellow Republicans. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently told a town hall meeting that protecting America’s “frail elderly” is “a family responsibility, not a government responsibility.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) mocked President Franklin Roosevelt for calling on the federal government to provide “a decent retirement plan” and “health care” because “the Constitution doesn’t give Congress any of those powers.” And GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Perry (R-TX) believes that everything from Medicare to Social Security to child labor laws to the minimum wage is unconstitutional.