Free Republic

A challenge to the Missouri Second Amendment Protection Act (SAPA) by St Louis and Jackson Counties failed in Circuit court. It is being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court. The United States is a Constitutional Republic, not a direct democracy. The system was designed and built with a specific set of checks and balances to set government power against government power, to protect the citizens from the centralized abuse of government authority against them. Hillsdale College offers an excellent, free, online course on the subject.In Missouri, Second Amendment advocates have spent years developing a state law to aid in protecting...

The landmark law governing adoptions of Native American children, designed to keep them within Native American families, has been struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in Texas. In an Oct. 4 ruling that has stunned Native American rights advocates, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor found that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 illegally gives Native American families preferential treatment in adoption proceedings for Native American children based on race, in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. Additionally, O’Connor ruled that the law violated the 10th Amendment’s federalism guarantees, specifically the so-called “anti-commandeering” principle established by...

Most Americans believe that the federal government stands absolutely supreme. Nobody can question its dictates. Nobody can refuse its edicts. Nobody can resist its commands. This is simply not true. Laws passed in pursuance of the Constitution do stand as the supreme law of the land. But that doesn’t in any way imply the federal government lords over everything and everybody in America.

Next month, the Missouri Senate will consider a bill which would effectively cripple the implementation of the Affordable Care Act within the state. Following the lead of South Carolina, where lawmakers are fast-tracking House Bill 3101 in 2014, and Georgia, where HB707 was recently introduced by Rep. Jason Spencer, Missouri State Senator John T. Lamping (R-24) pre-filed Senate Bill 546 (SB546) to update the Health Care Freedom Act passed by Missouri voters in 2010. It passed that year with more than 70% support. SB546 would ban Missouri from taking any action that would “compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer,...