The Tenther movement is a social movement in the United States, whose adherents espouse the political ideology that the federal government's enumerated powers must be read very narrowly to exclude much of what the federal government already does, citing the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in support of this.
In summary, members of the Tenther Movement believe that the Tenth Amendment should be interpreted as requiring that the federal government's enumerated powers be construed narrowly.
Tenthers oppose a broad range of federal government programs, including the war on drugs, federal surveillance and other limitations on privacy and civil and economic liberties, plus numerous New Deal legislation to Great Society legislation such as Medicaid, Medicare, the VA health system and the G.I.
[5] Joni Ernst, a Republican Senator since 2015,[6] said in a September 2013 forum held by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition while she was a member of the Iowa Senate that Congress should not bother to pass laws "that the states would consider nullifying", referring to what she describes as "200-plus years of federal legislators going against the Tenth Amendment's states' rights".
[5] Ernst's statements were criticized in an article published by the United Press International on the grounds that they were based upon a misunderstanding of Tenth Amendment case law.