Posted on 04/25/2015 5:16:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Congressman John Culberson (R-Texas).
One of the basic responsibilities of the executive branch is to execute the law faithfully. The Obama Administration, however, has no problem ignoring this duty to create its own rules.
Instead of working with Congress on substantive, collaborative legislation, the president has routinely opted to govern by decree, empowering bureaucrats at the expense of the democratic process. His misguided approach puts partisan politics – not the will of the people – at the forefront of decision-making in Washington.
Our reasons for introducing the “Restoring the 10th Amendment Act” stem from serious concerns about the administration’s power grabs. One of the Constitution’s most comprehensive protections is the 10th Amendment, which puts a clear limit on the federal government’s reach. Ratified on December 15, 1791, it states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Despite these constitutional protections, our personal lives and state authority continue to be affected by federal oversteps. Like many individuals and businesses, we are frustrated by Washington’s red tape and sweeping bureaucratic authority. The president’s big-government agenda lacks transparency and accountability, intruding into our households, businesses, schools, and churches in alarming ways.
The 2,700-page health-care law is a prime example of costly government interference, prompting the rise of health-care premiums and cancellations of insurance coverage. The same is true for onerous carbon dioxide rules that hurt U.S. energy independence and ultimately Americans’ wallets.
Many of the president’s executive actions have ended up in the courts because of their overwhelming scope. Earlier this year, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction to block the president’s immigration plan until it can be settled in court. More than two-dozen states, including our home states of Mississippi and Texas, have joined the lawsuit against the administration, claiming that the immigration overhaul is a costly and burdensome violation of states’ rights.
Our Founding Fathers foresaw the danger of unchecked federal power. In the Constitution, they set forth guiding principles to protect limited government in the new republic. The Bill of Rights, which includes the 10th Amendment, was added to allay fears that individual freedoms could be curtailed by federal encroachment.
One wonders what our Founding Fathers would think of Washington today. The onslaught of regulations and executive orders from the Obama administration has chipped away at the 10th Amendment’s division of power, putting more control in bureaucratic hands than that of the people or the states. This executive overreach hardly reflects James Madison’s writings in The Federalist, which noted that the Constitution granted “few and defined” powers to the federal government and left “numerous and indefinite” power to the states.
As elected officials, members of Congress have a responsibility to challenge excessive executive action, upholding the Constitution’s time-tested system of checks and balances. We believe the 10th Amendment is integral to this responsibility and the preservation of limited power.
Our “Restoring the 10th Amendment Act” would give state government officials special standing in court to dispute regulations and executive orders proposed by a federal agency or the President. In other words, states would have the tools to push back against violations of the 10th Amendment, helping to restore individual liberty and limit the size, power, and cost of the federal government.
For the past six years, the Obama administration has used executive measures to score partisan wins on controversial issues. This tactic denies Americans the right to open and transparent debate, one of the core elements of a functioning democracy. The “Restoring the 10th Amendment Act” would be an important step toward restoring accountability, protecting the spirit and letter of the Constitution, and reining in the federal government.
"...nor prohibited by it...." Prohibited by the Constitution or prohibited by the United States? Not eminently clear. I know the intent so I know what it means...but to the average kardashian voter...probably not so much
I'm losing faith it'll ever happen.
And one more thing...I’ll have some faith in in the future of our republic when national candidates are seen stating that proposed program X (to help the children,of course) should not be implemented because it’s not FedGov’s job and they have no authority to do so. Until that time it’s just a matter of whether we’re on the express train to collapse or just the regular speed train....destination is the same.
“...the president has routinely opted to govern by decree, empowering bureaucrats at the expense of the democratic process.”
And, no one sought to stop the evolution of this out-of-control leviathan when the encroachments on the Constitution first started.
Not so much ‘asleep at the wheel’, but rather not even on the ship, it seems. The American sheeple have allowed this to germinate, take root. Now it blooms into near dictatorship and folks are beginning to wake up. I hope it’s not too late.
No responses quoting dead congressmen, please.
I’m not sure how you could imagine that the ‘it’ refers to anything but the Constitution in a line of text referring exclusively to the Federal Constitution.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
You would have to be quite a stranger to the English language to think there is any subject here but the Federal Constitution which is both the context and the forum. But i suppose if you want read something backwards there is a simple reminity to that problem, Go back into history and read interpenetration and usesage of the founders.
“I think that the Fourteenth Amendment, as construed, repeals the Tenth, and that there’s nothing to be done about it without a new, clarifying amendment.”
While the 14th amendment was indeed written by deeply irresponsible or disingenuous radical federal republican, and arguably never radifiyed legitimately given the black mail conditions of many of the key radifiying states.(under Federal military control) not to mention the pre-ratification retraction of ratification of still other states ignored by congress at the time.
The 14th amendment did not even attempt to repeal the 10th 9th 1st or any other Amendment to the Federal constitution. If you read the words of its original authers the only thing its section 1 intended to do was to force states to treat all citizens equally the same as their previous act of congress did.
My congressman John Culberson, is no conservative.
He has been propping up John Boehner as Speaker. He has been voting against budget fiscal responsibility and against Americans for far too long.
I will vigorously oppose his attempt to retain his seat.
Unfortunately there is so much precedent it would be difficult to enforce now.
The only way to stop overreach into state matters is to return the states to the senate.
Or a lawyer.
Lawyers should not be excepted from the rules of English to the contrary they like judges must be held all the more strictly there for in their uses of English the rights of men and the existence of rule by law rather than themselves depends.
Thus while a lawyer and most of all a judge has every insentive in the world to ignore and redefine the application of English to any law written. The rules of construction and common law were suppose to bind them to the original understand as demonstrated in both words and historic practice. Otherwise judges and lawyers would be rulers rather than mere judges and lawyers.
Well yes, yes they are, ask any state that has had their State Constitutions abrogated by a single Federal Judge. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798 John Adams
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