Review
"At last, someone conversant with the large issues now roiling contemporary American politics has taken the Tea Party seriously and concluded that it is intellectually substantial and politically constructive. Elizabeth Price Foley, one of today's most stimulating writers on constitutional law, finds much to admire in the Tea Party's coherent braiding of three themes-limited government, constitutional originalism, and an unapologetic defense of U.S. sovereignty." -
George F. Will"Lambasted by the left, maligned by the media, the Tea Party may be the political phenomenon of the decade. No one has captured the energy and essence of this vital movement better than Elizabeth Price Foley. She combines scholarship and lucid writing with a profound respect - embraced by the Tea Party - for the U.S. Constitution as it was originally crafted to secure individual liberty and restrain government power. While I might quarrel with Prof. Foley's enthusiasm for America's muscular global role, her intellectual defense of the Tea Party and her application of its credo to urgent and controversial issues have produced a powerful, provocative, and timely book, which I highly recommend." -
Robert A. Levy, Chairman, Cato Institute"Elizabeth Price Foley has produced an interesting and important work on the constitutional basis for the agenda of the Tea Party movement.... I do believe anyone interested in understanding how the growth of the welfare-regulatory state violates the constitution and threatens liberty can benefit from reading this book." -
Ron Paul, United States Congressman (R-TX)"Elizabeth Price Foley's
The Tea Party is a clear and straightforward explication of what the Tea Party Movement is all about, and is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the current political climate. With this slim, provocative volume, Foley once again demonstrates why she is one of constitutional law's rising stars."
- Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law
“By elevating principle above party, the Tea Party has already changed the face of American politics. In this marvelous book, Elizabeth Price Foley clearly identifies and defends the three basic principles that unite the Tea Party movement, all stemming from its commitment to our written Constitution. Politicos beware; the party has just begun.”– Randy E. Barnett, Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown Law Center, and author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2005)"[Foley is one of the] champions of the Tea Party . . . [She] describes a movement driven by 'constitutional principles.' These include 'limited government, US sovereignty and constitutional originalism.' She adds that these principles are distinct from 'the social conservatism that has dominated the conservative movement for the last thirty years' and that Tea Partiers are at best lukewarm in their attitudes toward issues like abortion or gay marriage.' -
Sam Tanenhaus, New York Review of Books
"Foley lays out in exacting terms the core philosophy that underpins the movement. Foley writes like a lawyer, and the book reads like a well-constructed brief, which is not a criticism. So much nonsense has been written about tea party philosophy that a structured treatise that gets to the heart of the matter is more than welcome. . . . [H]ighly enjoyable reading."
- John Bicknell, Roll Call"[E]rudite but not too weedy. There is enough meat on the bones to make it both interesting and intellectually gratifying while never being too hard a read.... [I]f you are a Tea Partier or interested in the movement, this legal explanation of the ideas that drive the movement should be most welcome."
- Marty Dodge, Blogcritics.org
Book Description
In The Tea Party: Three Principles, Elizabeth Price Foley asserts that the mainstream media's characterization of the American Tea Party movement is distorted. Foley sees the decentralized, wide-ranging group as a movement bound by allegiance to three "core principles" of American constitutional law: limited government, unapologetic U.S. sovereignty, and constitutional originalism. She explains how these principles predict the Tea Party's impact on the American political landscape, connecting them to current issues, such as health care reform, illegal immigration, the war on terror, and internationalism.
