Wyoming Governor Calls for 10th Amendment Resolution

Tenth Amendment Center ^ | 07-28-09 | Tenth Amendment Center

[sovereignty2]

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal today transmitted the following memorandum and proposed resolution on state sovereignty to the Wyoming Legislature’s Management Council.

MEMORANDUM

To: Management Council Members From: Dave Freudenthal, Governor Date: July 28, 2009 Re: Sovereignty Resolution

As you know, individual states have been adopting Sovereignty Resolutions over the past few years. Such resolutions have been considered by the Wyoming Legislature over the years as well. Representative Illoway is working on one for this session.

The attached version expands slightly on the versions currently circulating. The resolution includes a list of specific federal laws and a reference to the idea that retaining lands in federal ownership runs afoul of the “equal footing” doctrine. I am enclosing a possible resolution for your consideration. Clearly this is ultimately a legislative prerogative.

From time to time we all wonder whether sending resolutions to Washington, DC really does any good. On the other hand, it’s nice to at least get our view on the record.

DRAFT

A JOINT RESOLUTION requesting Congress to cease and desist from enacting mandates that are beyond the scope of the enumerated powers granted to Congress by the Constitution of the United States.

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: “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”; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, 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 states; and

[sergeantdave]

“From time to time we all wonder whether sending resolutions to Washington, DC really does any good.”

From our Declaration of Independence:

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

(On schedule to revisit 1776.)

[kempster]

You know, it's an ugly business doing one's duty... but just occasionally it's a real pleasure. - Colonel William Tavington

[DuncanWaring]

Ping.

[cdcdawg]

the problem is that we don’t have a federal government with enumerated powers. It has unlimited power. That’s because for the last 70 years the Commerce Clause has read to cover literally everything. FDR’s court killed the Constitution. The powers listed and the Tenth Amendment have no meaning at all.

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

This is news. Possibly the only good news we have. Why was it moved to bloggers? It is atleast front page news.

[Thermalseeker]

That’s because for the last 70 years the Commerce Clause has read to cover literally everything. FDR’s court killed the Constitution.

It goes back a bit farther, more like April 9, 1865. States rights died at Appomattox, VA, that day......

[Admin Moderator]

Because the poster is a blog pimp and places everything in Breaking news, despite our having asked him to stop.

[Eagle Eye]

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 states;

If a State wants single payer health care, or generous welfare benefits, or strict EPA regulation, or no tolerance on pot, alcohol, or fatty foods that is fine by me, I don't have to live there, it is that state's right for self governance.

But it is not the fed's place to install obesity taxes, or regulate the healthcare marketplace, or tell us where one can or cannot smoke pot or buy tobacco or gamble or how to run the schools, etc. and it is time the fed had its hand slapped and slapped hard.

[Dahoser]

And keep in mind that Freudenthal is a Democrat!

[ForGod'sSake]

Thanks DuncanWaring.

Folks, oddly enough, Wyoming has been silent regarding 10th Amendment/States Rights initiatives. For the governor of a State to attempt to light a fire under what I presume be a conservative State legislature is something a little different. At least it's the first time I've seen it this go round.

Wyoming governor has entered into the room! Ω

Click the 10th Amendment button for articles tagged "10thamendment". A "statesrights" link is atop the forum page.

Please ~ping~ me to articles relating to the 10th Amendment/States Rights so I can engage the pinger.

I've stopped scouring threads and unilaterally adding names to the ping list, so if you want on or off the list just say so.

Additional Resources:

Tenth Amendment Chronicles Thread
Tenth Amendment Center
The Right Side of Life/State Initiatives
Sovereign States
Find Law(Brief narrative on 10th Amendment)

CLICK HERE TO FIND YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES

[ForGod'sSake]

Because the poster is a blog pimp and places everything in Breaking news, despite our having asked him to stop.

I'd REALLY like to discuss this with you but I've got some pressing chores needing attention at the moment. I'll get back to you as soon as I can spend a few minutes on, er, debate.

[Stonewall Jackson]

FYI

[EdReform]

Ping

[Condor51]

Now THIS is one heck of a resolution!

WHEREAS, 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;

~~snip~~

Section 2. That this resolution serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, from enacting mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

San Fran Nan will need another Botox injection after her face cracks when she reads this Resolution. And Reichsführer-WH, Rahm Emanuel, will need a new set of knives after he gets done stabbing everything in sight.₍₁₎

(1) That guy is mentally deranged.

[cowboyusa]

BIG Wyoming cowboy bump.

[marsh2]

It is clear that as long as the federal government retains the “public lands” of the West in federal ownership, that the Western states do not have equal footing with the Eastern states. Public lands were to be settled by homesteaders and not kept as property of the federal government. http://users.sisqtel.net/armstrng/eqlfoot.htm

The federal policy of the time of early settlement was not to offer for private sale lands chiefly valuable for mineral development. Lands remained within the “public domain” until surveyed and offered for disposal as “public land”* under land patent through the agency of the General Land Office (later Bureau of Land Management).

[* “The words ‘public lands’ are habitually used in our legislation to describe such as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws.” Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U.S. 761; See also Leavenworth, etc., R. Co. v. U. S., Id. 733; Doolan v. Carr, 125 U.S. 618, 8 Sup. Ct. 1228.

See also, Union Pac. R. Co. v. Harris, 215 U.S. 386 (1910): “What is meant by ‘public lands’ is well settled. As stated in Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U.S. 761, 763, 23 S. L. ed. 769, 770: ‘The words ‘public lands’ are habitually used in our legislation to describe such as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws.’ See also Barker v. Harvey, 181 U.S. 481-490, 45 L. ed. 963-968, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 690; Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U.S. 373-391, 46 L. ed. 954-964, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 650.”]

Title to this land was ceded to the nation through treaties by Spain, England and France for areas west of the Mississippi, but not to the “federal” government (Congress.) There remains considerable dispute in the West over the Constitutional capacity of the federal government to retain these lands as “federally owned” properties within the boundaries of a Western State without specific pre-statehood “reservation” for the legitimate purposes of discharging international and domestic treaty obligations, or for forts, arsenals, etc. Westerners question why these “unappropriated lands” were never passed to the sovereign people of the States for their disposal - to be held in trust as “commons” or as “wastelands” subject to appropriation. Absent a federal deed of cession as in the east, did the agency of the federal government not shift from that as trustee for the existing States to that of trustee for the sovereign people of the new States? Did the “federal” government violate its fiduciary responsibility as trustee for the future people of new States under the “Equal Footing Doctrine,” by essentially appropriating these “public lands” to itself by permanently withdrawing them from disposal and asserting sole control of their use?

In 1891, the “Creative Act,” “Forest Reserve Act” or General Land Law Revision Act (26 Stat. 1103) was passed. The original Act contained no provision whatsoever for forest reserves. It repealed several Acts, including the Timber Culture Act of 1873 and all pre-emption laws. [The Timber Culture Act granted a homesteader a patent to 160 acres of land in the Great Plains if he agreed to plant 1/4 of land in trees. This was later changed to eliminate tree planting provision.]

Section 24, the one that authorized the President to set aside forest reserves, was added as a last minute rider to “An act to repeal timber culture laws, and for other purposes” by a House-Senate conference committee. The rider was never referred back to its originating committees, (House and Senate Public Lands Committees,) which is, technically, an illegal procedure.

Sec. 24: “That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations; and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof.”

In 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act stated:
“Sec. 102. [43 U.S.C. 1701] (a) The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States that–
(1) the public lands be retained in Federal ownership,
unless as a result of the land use planning procedure provided for in this Act, it is determined that disposal of a particular parcel will serve the national interest;”

By this policy statement, the federal government as fiduciary agent for the people of the states in which the lands lie violated that trust and took wonership of the property for itself.

So much for equal footing.

[ForGod'sSake]

Ok, I would like to be clear on what you’re referring to as a blog. If in fact you’re referring to the Tenth Amendment Center as merely a blog, I’ve got a bone to pick. This web site may arguably be our best resource for NEWS relating to 10th Amendment and States Rights issues. The owner of the site doubtless is spending hours every day scouring the web for updates, aggregating developments, and assimilating other pertinent data in a darn coherent web site. It has been invaluable to those of us with a keen interest in following these initiatives. Kudos to him/her/them.

[A_Former_Democrat]

It’s up to us to change that. The Tenth Amendment wasn’t put there for nothing. We have to be judicial activists just like the left became.

Conservatives have been asleep at the wheel on Constitutional issues for decades. It’s time that stopped and maybe this disaster called the Obama Administration is the trigger.

[WackySam]

For those on Facebook there is a group called "10th Amendment" that is pretty active. They usually update at least twice a day.

http://www.facebook.com/10thAmendment