Governor Perry's Ambitious Plans

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Governor Perry proposed a constitutional amendment to allow organized prayer in public schools. It's an extension of the campaign's current strategy of hoping that social conservatives will give him a boost out of fourth or fifth place in the Iowa caucuses.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," the Republican presidential hopeful went a step further than his previous calls for the Supreme Court to reverse its 1962 decision that banned organized prayer in public schools.

Perry said he would support "a constitutional amendment that would allow our children to pray in school any time that they would like."

Such a proposal would easily pass if put to a nationwide vote, Perry said. The step is necessary because of what Perry called "activist judges" appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

I think Perry is right that such an amendment would be exceptionally popular. But this late-adopted plea for social cons to save him will have about as much success for Perry as it had for Santorum and Bachmann.

This is the eighth constitutional amendment Perry has suggested during the campaign. The others were a pro-life amendment, a marriage amendment, a balanced budget amendment, an amendment repealing the income tax, an amendment repealing direct election of senators, an amendment abolishing lifetime tenure for federal judges, and an amendment giving Congress a veto of Supreme Court decisions.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 11:46 AM

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