Posted on 03/04/2009 5:15:25 AM PST by kellynla
Last week, HUMAN EVENTS reported that eleven states, Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, had all “all introduced bills and resolutions” declaring their sovereignty over Obama’s actions in light of the 10th Amendment.
These actions are in response to the Obama administration’s faux-“stimulus” legislation which directly assaults the rights of states to reject the money coming from the federal government. So far, several Republican governors -- among them South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal -- have said they would refuse all or part of the stimulus money because of the constitutional infringements and because of the additional unfunded liabilities they impose on the states.
This week, HUMAN EVENTS is happy to report that five more states have decided to invoke the 10th as well.
These five -- Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, and West Virginia -- have all begun their action under the 10th Amendment in a bid to protect themselves from what they view as nothing less than an unconstitutional usurpation of power on the part of the Obama administration.
On February 23, HJR 108 was put forth in the Tennessee legislature, indicating that legislators in that state decided “it [was] time to affirm state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and demand the federal government halt its practice of assuming powers and of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution,” according to Truman Bean.
The very next day, February 24, Kentucky State Representative John Will Stacy (D), “introduced House Concurrent Resolution 168… serving notice to the federal government to cease mandates beyond its authority.”
In declaring their sovereignty these states have joined what has come to be known as “the 10th Amendment movement.” It is a grassroots, conservative movement that seeks to defend the separation of powers as originally set forth by our Founders in the Constitution.
Through this movement, conservatives are throwing down the gauntlet against tyranny and the abuse of power. They are invoking the 10th Amendment at the state level against abuses of power by the federal government, and doing so with appeals to the extra-constitutional writings of our Founding fathers.
For example, Indiana’s resolution calls attention to the words of Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist and Founder who “expressed his hope that ‘the people will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the state governments.’” Hamilton “believed that ‘this balance between the national and state governments forms a double security to the people. If one [government] encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from over-passing their constitutional limits by [the] certain [rivalry] which will ever subsist between them.’”
Kansas’ Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1609 delves even deeper into the mechanics of the matter by reminding the Obama administration, as well as the House and Senate, that “the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the state.” In other words, the federal government exists by and for the states, not the other way around.
The resolution headed to West Virginia’s 79th Legislature couples its action under the 10th Amendment with a reminder directed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “[The] United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states.” This reminder is followed by a pronouncement that “a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.”
In light of these violations of the Constitution, the stated purpose of West Virginia’s resolution is, in part, to “serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”
Our rights as citizens are under assault by an administration of leftist ideologues with an insatiable appetite for power. There is little difference between them and the appeasement-drunken, government-expanding leftists in Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administration of whom Ronald Reagan said in 1964, “Inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government…and freedom is close to slipping from our grip.”
Every state assembly and legislature that has joined “the 10th Amendment movement” understands that Reagan’s words about freedom’s fragility in 1964 are no less true for our day when not only freedom, but also the America ideal, is “close to slipping from our grip.”
We must stand shoulder to shoulder with states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, and West Virginia in demanding that the federal government immediately “cease and desist” its usurpation of our liberties.
ping
Now if they would just declare secession. Or some sort of vote of no confidence to start removal proceedings of the House and Senate.
Anyone want to bet that the LAST state to stand up to the Federal Government will NOT be the PDRM? That’s the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts.
The place where the flame of freedom first lit the sky will be the last to defend it.
“God Save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”
I see Florida has still not made the list. What a bunch of panty wastes we have here in government, and our state anymore. While I am a transplant from the dreaded north, I did it to escape the liberal bull up there. It seems to have taken over here this year, as FL went blue this year. Conservatives in FL better unite and fight before we become a cesspool. Beware states like WY, CO,and ID. The liberals from CA have pooped in their state and now they are going to leave and come to poop in yours, just like what is happening in FL. It is part of the grand plan to bring every state to blue and govt dependent. Pass conservative laws as quick as you can, espcecially 2nd amendment and abortion laws. This is getting bad.....
Secession is not a valid Constitutional concept. Pressing for a Constitutional separation of powers that correctly invokes the 10th Amendment is both proper and overdue.
It is important that the Federal Government understand its relationship to the Sovereign States under the Constitution. It is, to paraphrase Bill Cosby quoting his father, “We brought you into this world and we can take you out”. Under our Constitution, the Federal Government exists only with the sufferance of the Sovereign States.
Think about it. The Feds suck wealth from the States and then give it back with all sorts of strings attached. The Feds also have the unique ability to lend to themselves (Treasury/Fed Actions) which borrowings they further bestow on States to increase control.
What powers the States retain only overlay what the Feds put in place creating a patchwork of complicated regulations. This is a mess folks.
Well I’m in California... not much hope here.
One step at a time, dad...
Rebellion starts with one man saying “No”.
We’ll be a lot better off in the long run if the states follow this in a step by step escalative manner.
After the resolution is passed and the feds pass unconstitutional laws anyway, then it’s time to pass a non-enforcement resolution/law.
The feds will eventually have to use force to impose their will. At that point, the local LEOs and Nat’l guard must be used to protect our state officials and citizens.
THAT’S when it gets interesting.
Get armed, get ammo’d, get in shape, get trained.
My bet is on Pennsylvania.
We’re like the Illonois of the east. Run by liberal Democrats who follow lock step with the liberal heads, and a citizenship that doesn’t care what our politicians do, as long as they are Democrats.
Sixteen states, five of them bastions of blue, by my count.
You have alot of hope. As the liberals leave the mess they made you in CA, you will eventually clean up your community, and recover. The rest of the states will get stuck with the liberal garbage leaving and will have to find a new conservative bastion to go to . Maybe in the next 50 years or so, CA will be it? For now, hunker down.
I am hoping that most liberals are too flimsy to live in true tough country conditions as in Idaho or Montana/Wyoming. That is where I am going to flee to if things go real bad here. Too many love the warm sunny tropical climate of FL, same problem you have in CA.
See my tagline and you will know I agree!
Sad however, but they will not stop until someone stops them.
They are destroying our people’s wealth and setting the table for the dictator.
You’re welcome to move here to Tennessee. ;-)))
One thing states can do to keep the liberal contamination out is to reduce “services” or change over to “usage fees” so that libs won’t see everything as “free” from the government.
If this comes down to a split, more “stringent” screening must be applied to keep them out.
Wrong. Illinois will be the last. Our pols are salavating at the thought of more taxing and more spending.
They know no other way. Leftists in our state call Mayor Daley a Republican and a conservative.
That is just how pasty white and noodly our Republicans are.
Sorry. Salivating. It is how we talk. ;-]
This is encouraging. Needs more attention. Maybe if we could get off the kabuki theater of Rush vs Steele, we could get more attention on this. Did anyone at CPAC even mention this?
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