What does the 16th amendment cover?
Political positions of Rick Perry
Some of Perry's views are in opposition to Constitutional amendments already adopted. In his 2010 book "Fed Up!", he takes issue with the Federal government's right to collect income tax, saying "if you want to know when Washington really got off the track, the 16th Amendment, giving them the opportunity to take your money with a personal income tax." He also criticizes the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of U.S. Senators. According to Perry, the 16th and 17th Amendments caused states to "[hand] over significant chunks of their sovereignty and wealth to the federal government. Congress was free to tax and spend to its heart's content."
Turner v. Rogers
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion in which he noted that the Fourteenth Amendment never provided for alternative safeguards to ensure that protections under the Fourteenth Amendment were not violated, and that the Sixth Amendment only applies to criminal prosecutions, and not civil cases, and that as such, the Sixth Amendment does not require the state to provide counsel to indigent defendants (in this case, neither side was represented by counsel at the initial civil contempt hearing). Thomas further argued (with only Justice Antonin Scalia joining) that the majority opinion did not consider the effects of this decision with respect to child support payments, and expressed concern that the majority opinion would undermine state efforts to collect child support payments.