Posted on 02/16/2005 1:26:49 AM PST by TERMINATTOR
HELENA -- Lawmakers in the Montana House of Representatives collectively thumbed their noses at the federal government Monday by approving two bills exempting guns from federal regulations and driver's licenses from national standardization requirements.
The bills by Reps. Diane Rice, R-Harrison, and Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, do different things but are driven by the same concern: the erosion of personal liberties by the federal government. Koopman said Monday his gun bill, House Bill 366, would inspire a home-grown industry of gun-makers who produce firearms to be sold in Montana. It also sends a message reaffirming states' rights.
"In that regard, this bill really has positive consequences, I believe, beyond the firearms industry itself," he said.
Rice is sponsoring HB 304, which would prevent the state from cooperating with the federal government in establishing nationwide standards for noncommercial driver's licenses.
Federal standards, she said, amount to a national ID card. Critics fear that such standards will lead to the government tracking its citizens.
There was virtually no debate about the bill before lawmakers voted 94-6 to pass it, with a third and final vote expected today.
Congress last year required nationwide standards for driver's licenses, fearing terrorists were using the nation's cornucopia of license styles to skirt security at airports.
Montana already meets those standards, according to Dean Roberts of the motor vehicle division of the Montana Department of Justice.
But there are now two proposals before Congress that go beyond what the state puts on its driver's licenses. They would, for example, mandate states produce licenses resistant to tampering and counterfeiting.
If Montana ignores those standards -- as the bill requires -- then residents here wouldn't be able to use the driver's licenses as a form of ID when boarding commercial airplanes, or use them to pass any sort of federal-required identification.
"To the average citizen, that means you are not going to get on an airplane," Roberts said.
The bill was limited to noncommercial licenses because failure to comply with commercial license requirements would mean losing federal highway funds, he said.
It also makes it illegal to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens, which currently isn't prohibited under state law.
Koopman's HB 366 would exempt guns made in Montana from federal regulation under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, as long as the guns remain inside the state.
Rep. Tim Dowell, D-Kalispell, criticized it as aiding terrorism. He noted that law enforcement officers used gun regulations to link the Washington D.C.-area sniper shootings.
Terrorists "can come to Montana, they can buy one of these weapons, go on a reign of terror, and there would be no way to track them down," he said.
He also questioned the logic of the state exempting itself from federal law.
"That's pretty cool, maybe we should say we aren't subject to the income tax," he said.
Dowell's complaints were dismissed as "crazy emotionalism" by Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred. In the end, 73 lawmakers voted to move the bill forward, and afterward there was scattered applause on the House floor.
A third and final vote is expect today. If both bills pass their third vote, then they will move on to the Senate.
Bump for later read!
Fine by me! Since you mention it, Mr. Dowell, let's get somebody write that bill too!
It can per the 10th amendment if that federal law is not constitutional, as in not "made in Pursuance thereof" of the constitution (supremacy clause). Last I checked there was nothing in the constitution that gave Congress the power to regulate intrastate commerce, of which a domestic gunmaking industry would be.
If you look at the constitution, Montana is doing EXACTLY what it has the right to do. The Supremacy Clause that people like fake-it worship reads as follows:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land
Note the underlined section. It means that any federal law that is NOT "made in pursuance" of the constitution is in fact NOT supreme and NOT constitutional. Since Amendments 9 and 10 are very much a part of the constitution (as is Article I Section 8 which only gives congress the power to regulate commerce between the states, foreign nations, and indian tribes but NOT within the states themselves), any attempt of the federal government to prevent Montana from doing what it is doing would be unconstitutional by its act and invalid under the very same supremacy clause that people like fake-it purport to be an enforcing mechanism.
Ooooh the fabled 10th amendment of lore able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. There are not 50 interpretations of the constitutions which are valid for legal proceedings or which determine what is or is not "made in Pursuance thereof" and if you believe a corporation can guarantee that is products cannot leave the state of their production then you are a bigger fool than I thought.
States have no legal authority over the Federal government and never did.
Who created the federal government?
The People of the United States just as it says in the Constitution. "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility...." Words we should all remember.
We pledge alleigance to the Republic, not just that little piece of it inside the beltway.
Sorry but that is NOT what the Preamble says. The People of the United States were ASSEMBLED in State conventions specifically to remove the States from that approval. States were subordinate to the People of the United States and CREATED by the command of the Continental Congress. States were NEVER over the Nation. Parts cannot be greater than the whole.
The Constitutional Convention was authorized by the Congress of the United States. States had nothing to say about it.
That Republic is manifest in the Constitution. And that Constitution was created by the People.
Sorry for your deficiencies in education, but that is what a REPUBLIC is. The founders did not create a new NATION, they created a common government. The states were not destroyed, by states they acceded to a common government, and to that new government they DELEGATED certain powers - for enumerated puposes. Delegated powers can be resumed.
The Constitutional Convention was authorized by the Congress of the United States. States had nothing to say about it.
States were the parties in CONGRESS. And per their existing agreement - the Articles of Confederation & Peretual Union - such changes required UNANIMOUS consent per Article XIII - yet only 12 states attended, two members of the New York delegation left in disgust leaving that state without a vote in convention, and the NEW government was created when 9 - NINE - states ratified. I don't know about math in yankee states, but here in the South, 9 is less than 13.
The Continental Congress created the states and nothing you say can change that. They are subordinate units of our Nation.
I think you ignored the key question about this topic: forget about the theory for a moment, but what are the feds going to do?
Let's say that the Feds try to withhold highway funding--ok, Montana decides to play hardball and just simply refuses to remit the taxes to the federal government in the firstplace.
It comes down to sending in troops, and I just don't see that happening. If Montana doesn't want to play ball, it's pretty tough to make it. The whole system that we've got set up here pretty much depends on the states going along for the ride.
And it granted and enumerated the powers of the Federal Government. Those powers were fixed at the time they were transferred, and remain unchanged until altered by amendment.
"I write separately only to express my view that the very notion of a ‘substantial effects’ test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress’ powers and with this Court’s early Commerce Clause cases. By continuing to apply this rootless and malleable standard, however circumscribed, the Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits. Until this Court replaces its existing Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."
- Justice Clarence Thomas
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
- James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell
13 Feb. 1829
Letters 4:14--15
You speak as though States PAY taxes. They don't and any individual living in Montana will have to decide whether to go up against the IRS on their own. A rather daunting prospect.
I have no argument with the Thomas quotation since the use of the Commerce Clause had gotten out of hand and needed another look at it. The court could review the fedlaw in regard to this and decide against it. That is the way the Constitution meant for the system to work.
Nullification has never been valid and never can be and still have the Constitution be the law of the land. It wasn't valid for South Carolina in 1830 or Montana in 2005.
Madison had slipped away from his Nationalist beginnings by 1829 and his original belief that the states were a positive detrement to National development and should be eliminated. The Constitutional Convention was called as much for economic reasons as political according to many.
They can indeed, but the can't do it spontaneously. There has to be a case to base it on. This may provide the basis for such a case.
Madison had slipped away from his Nationalist beginnings by 1829 and his original belief that the states were a positive detrement to National development and should be eliminated. The Constitutional Convention was called as much for economic reasons as political according to many.
That may be, but his observatsion on the original intent of the Commerce Clause remain, and help establish the basis for determining that Congress' use of the Commerce Clause has indeed exceed the authority granted to it by the representatives of the States that transferred that power.
In expounding the Constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the Constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution, and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its force and effect to have been fully understood. No word in the instrument, therefore, can be rejected as superfluous or unmeaning.
Chief Justice Taney, Holmes v. Jennison, 39 Pet. 540, 571 (1840)
The problem is in the meaning placed on the words and those whose agenda is to undermine the federal government postulate that the 10th overrules all the rest.
My understanding of it is that it can do NOTHING contrary to a federal law and ONLY has application within a state which affects none in other states.
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