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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading a five-state coalition that on Thursday won an $839 million judgment against the federal government in an Obamacare lawsuit, a massive blow to the Obama administration’s namesake legislation. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, better known as Obamacare) requires medical providers to pay a Health Insurance Provider Fee (HIPF). Even though the ACA exempts states from paying that fee when providing health care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Obama era created a regulation requiring states to pay the fee anyway, a fee that is styled as a tax...

Elizabeth Warren, meet Clarence Thomas. Senator Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, was in the headlines recently for joining with Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican who represents Colorado, to introduce the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States Act. That legislation would, as Warren put it in a tweet, “let states, territories, & tribes decide for themselves how best to regulate marijuana — without federal interference.” Justice Thomas is Warren’s natural ally on the issue. He wrote an emphatic dissent in the 2005 Supreme Court case Gonzalez v. Raich. Gonzalez was President George W. Bush’s attorney general Alberto Gonzalez, and Angel...

Sens. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill Thursday intended to protect the laws of states that have legalized some form of marijuana from federal intervention. The Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act would ensure that states can make and enforce their own laws pertaining to the production and distribution of marijuana as long as states comply with a few federally-mandated basic protections. Currently, 46 states and additional territories have laws permitting medical and/or recreational marijuana. Both Colorado and Massachusetts have legalized recreational marijuana. But on the federal level, the...

Among the recent garbled effusions from today’s temporary president — cheer up; they are all temporary — was one that concerned something about which he might not have thought as deeply as the subject merits. During an episode of government of, by, and for “Fox & Friends,” he said: He won the 2016 election “easily” but wishes the electoral vote system were replaced by direct election of presidents by popular vote. He favors this “because” — if you were expecting him to offer reasons drawn from political philosophy or constitutional theory, grow up — “to me, it’s much easier to...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A 9-year-old girl unwittingly ate, and handed out to other classmates, THC-laced candy, school officials said. The girl brought the candies to school last Thursday and said she could not see...The student who brought them to school did not know they were medicinal...

In continuance of the Senate of the States series, the next three squibs leave the Federal Convention and visit the decades leading to the destructive 17th Amendment (17A). The 17A triggered a cascade of stunning downwind consequences, perhaps only second in effect to the immediate post-Civil War amendments. As opposed to the 13th – 15th Amendments which reset society, the 17A reset our republican governing form. Overnight, the 17A transformed the Framers’ exquisite compound democratic/federal structure into a democratic form deadly to republics.1 Why the 17th Amendment? What enormous forces convinced the people, states, and congress to trade a proven,...

With less than a month to go before AlabamaÂ’s special election to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Republican candidate Roy Moore refuses to quit the race amid fallout over credible allegations of sexual assault dating from the 1970s, including that he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.Some polls still show Moore leading his Democratic opponent Doug Jones, while a poll conducted by the National Republican Senate Committee earlier this week shows Moore trailing Jones by 12 points.Senate Republicans are calling on Moore to withdraw from the race, saying...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Friday called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and the return to senators selected by state legislatures after the Senate GOP's effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare died in a late-night vote. The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and established the popular election of senators. Previously, senators were elected by state legislatures. @GovMikeHuckabee Time to repeal 17th Amendment. Founders had it right-Senators chosen by state legislatures. Will work for their states and respect 10th amid The Senate's "skinny repeal" of ObamaCare failed late Thursday night by a vote of 51-49. The...

California and other states would be barred from setting their own rules governing design and testing of self-driving cars, while federal regulators would be blocked from demanding pre-market approval for autonomous vehicle technology, according to a U.S. House Republican proposal reviewed by Reuters on Thursday. The draft legislation, while far from becoming law, still represents a victory for General Motors Co, Alphabet Inc, Tesla Inc and other automakers and technology companies seeking to persuade Congress and the Trump administration to pre-empt rules under consideration in California, New York and other states that could limit deployment of self-driving vehicles.....

Members of the North Carolina General Assembly introduced a bill on Tuesday, citing the 10th Amendment, which affirms that the U.S. Supreme Court exceeded its authority under the Constitution and in relation to the “decree of Almighty God” by legalizing same-sex marriage, and contends that the Obergefell v. Hodges decision “is null and void” in North Carolina and that the Tar Heel state shall only recognize marriages between one man and one woman. The legislation explains that North Carolina seeks to follow the 2012 law that was established in Section 6 of Article XIV of the North Carolina Constitution, which...

"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." I don't see power over health care or insurance or anything like that being delegated to the federal government anywhere in the constitution, so it is reserved to the states and the people per the tenth amendment. The federal government cannot dictate who or what must be covered or at what price or any other terms or requirements for private health care insurance or coverage. And, Robert's ruling notwithstanding, it is not...

The State of Tennessee filed a lawsuit on March 13, becoming the first state in the nation to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement on the grounds of the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment, The Tennessean reported. Tennessee argues that the federal government has forced the states to pay for the refugee resettlement program, thereby violating the 10th Amendment, which says the federal government possesses only the powers granted to it by the U.S. Constitution and that all other powers are reserved for the states. While other states have sued the federal government over refugee resettlement, this lawsuit is the...

Congressional Republicans on Monday night released their formal plan for replacing Obamacare. Read the bill here.

While Trump may claim he’s for states rights, Attorney General Jeff Sessions just pissed on the opinions of about 71% of Americans who do not believe the federal government should attempt to ram federal laws down the throats of states where voters have legalized marijuana. After Press Secretary Sean Spicer essentially warned everyone last week that the Trump administration plans to crack down on states with recreational marijuana laws, AG Sessions backed that up on Monday with some bizarre statements that prove the guy actually believes Reefer Madness was a documentary. Via Politico: “Most of you probably know I don’t...

ttorney General Jeff Sessions has twice in two days publicly bashed marijuana legalization, abandoning his confirmation-process reticence to discuss the topic and reclaiming his colorful opposition. On Tuesday, Sessions told a Washington ballroom packed with state attorneys general – many of them in charge of defending laws that conflict with federal prohibition – that pot legalization should be resisted, though he did not describe any specific plans to challenge state-regulated markets. Attorneys general of three states with laws allowing for recreational sales told U.S. News after the remarks that Sessions needs to clarify his intentions.

Yesterday the Trump administration preserved federalism, respected the principle of local control over local schools, and corrected one of the Obama administration’s many lawless and radical executive actions. With a simple, two-page letter, the Departments of Education and Justice withdrew and rescinded two Obama-administration letters that purported to unilaterally redefine Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Obama administration had expanded Title IX’s explicit ban on sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions to encompass “gender identity” discrimination and then imposed intrusive “guidance” on every federally funded school in the nation, on matters ranging from pronoun usage to...

Justice Department officials plan to issue new guidance on protections for transgender students that will effectively reverse Obama-era recommendations and ensure those issues are decided at the state level going forward. "That's an issue that the Department of Justice the Department of Education are addressing, and I think there will be further guidance coming from [Justice Department] in particular, with respect to not just the executive order but the case that's in front of the Supreme Court," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday. The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments late next month on a case...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Citing increasingly sophisticated cyber bad actors and an election infrastructure that's "vital to our national interests," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Friday that he's designating U.S. election systems critical infrastructure, a move that provides more federal help for state and local governments to keep their election systems safe from tampering. "Given the vital role elections play in this country, it is clear that certain systems and assets of election infrastructure meet the definition of critical infrastructure, in fact and in law," Johnson said in a statement. He added: "Particularly in these times, this designation is simply...

Because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, there are now voices clamoring for America to abandon the Electoral College and become a pure democracy with the winner of the presidential election by popular vote. Not a good idea. In fact it is a very bad idea. Americans should remember that the United States is not a democracy — it is a federated form of government where the role of the federal government is limited to delegated powers by the Founders. This action was then solidified by the 10th Amendment that declares “The powers not delegated...

Of all those whose predictions were dashed by this year’s presidential outcome (“Trump is headed toward a major loss” his Oct. 19 headline blared), few have been more exercised than the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne (“white identity politics and male self-assertion triumphed” he railed the day after). Yesterday, in a piece titled “America will soon be ruled by a minority,” he joined the chorus now condemning the “undemocratic” Electoral College—in the name of the Founders, no less, the very men who created it. Ever the good progressive, he fails to appreciate the role states were meant to play in ordering...