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Title: States’ Rights Is Rallying Cry for Lawmakers
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17states.html
Published: Mar 18, 2010
Author: KIRK JOHNSON
Post Date: 2010-03-18 06:34:17 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 89
Comments: 5
Whether it’s correctly called a movement, a backlash or political theater, state declarations of their rights — or in some cases denunciations of federal authority, amounting to the same thing — are on a roll. Enlarge This Image Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune In Utah, a bill by Representative Carl Wimmer, a Republican, would require the state to sign off on any federal health reform. Readers' Comments Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, signed a bill into law on Friday declaring that the federal regulation of firearms is invalid if a weapon is made and used in South Dakota. On Thursday, Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, signed a similar bill for that state. The same day, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives approved a resolution that Oklahomans should be able to vote on a state constitutional amendment allowing them to opt out of the federal health care overhaul. In Utah, lawmakers embraced states’ rights with a vengeance in the final days of the legislative session last week. One measure said Congress and the federal government could not carry out health care reform, not in Utah anyway, without approval of the Legislature. Another bill declared state authority to take federal lands under the eminent domain process. A resolution asserted the “inviolable sovereignty of the State of Utah under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.” Some legal scholars say the new states’ rights drive has more smoke than fire, but for lawmakers, just taking a stand can be important enough. “Who is the sovereign, the state or the federal government?” said State Representative Chris N. Herrod, a Republican from Provo, Utah, and leader of the 30-member Patrick Henry Caucus, which formed last year and led the assault on federal legal barricades in the session that ended Thursday. Alabama, Tennessee and Washington are considering bills or constitutional amendments that would assert local police powers to be supreme over the federal authority, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, a research and advocacy group based in Los Angeles. And Utah, again not to be outdone, passed a bill last week that says federal law enforcement authority, even on federal lands, can be limited by the state. “There’s a tsunami of interest in states’ rights and resistance to an overbearing federal government; that’s what all these measures indicate,” said Gary Marbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, which led the drive last year for one of the first “firearms freedoms,” laws like the ones signed last week in South Dakota and Wyoming. In most cases, conservative anxiety over federal authority is fueling the impulse, with the Tea Party movement or its members in the backdrop or forefront. Mr. Herrod in Utah said that he had spoken at Tea Party rallies, for example, but that his efforts, and those of the Patrick Henry Caucus, were not directly connected to the Tea Partiers. And in some cases, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, the politics of states’ rights are veering left. Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, for example — none of them known as conservative bastions — are considering bills that would authorize, or require, governors to recall or take control of National Guard troops, asserting that federal calls to active duty have exceeded federal authority. “Everything we’ve tried to keep the federal government confined to rational limits has been a failure, an utter, unrelenting failure — so why not try something else?” said Thomas E. Woods Jr., a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a nonprofit group in Auburn, Ala., that researches what it calls “the scholarship of liberty.” Mr. Woods, who has a Ph.D. in history, and has written widely on states’ rights and nullification — the argument that says states can sometimes trump or disregard federal law — said he was not sure where the dots between states’ rights and politics connected. But he and others say that whatever it is, something politically powerful is brewing under the statehouse domes. Other scholars say the state efforts, if pursued in the courts, would face formidable roadblocks. Article 6 of the Constitution says federal authority outranks state authority, and on that bedrock of federalist principle rests centuries of back and forth that states have mostly lost, notably the desegregation of schools in the 1950s and ’60s. “Article 6 says that that federal law is supreme and that if there’s a conflict, federal law prevails,” said Prof. Ruthann Robson, who teaches constitutional law at the City University of New York School of Law. “It’s pretty difficult to imagine a way in which a state could prevail on many of these.” And while some efforts do seem headed for a direct conflict with federal laws or the Constitution, others are premised on the idea that federal courts have misinterpreted the Constitution in the federal government’s favor. A lawsuit filed last year by the Montana Shooting Sports Association after the state’s “firearms freedom” law took effect, for example, does not say that the federal government has no authority to regulate guns, but that courts have misconstrued interstate commerce regulations. National monuments and medical marijuana, of all things, play a role as well. Mr. Herrod in Utah said that after an internal memorandum from the United States Department of the Interior was made public last month, discussing sites around the country potentially suitable for federal protection as national monuments — including two sites in Utah — support for all kinds of statements against federal authority gained steam. And at the Tenth Amendment Center, the group’s founder, Michael Boldin, said he thought states that had bucked federal authority over the last decade by legalizing medical marijuana, even as federal law held all marijuana use and possession to be illegal, had set the template in some ways for the effort now. And those states, Mr. Boldin said, were essentially validated in their efforts last fall when the Justice Department said it would no longer make medical marijuana a priority in the states were it was legal. Nullification, he said, was shown to work. Whether the political impulse of states’ rights and nullification will become a direct political fault line in the national elections this fall is uncertain, said Mr. Woods of the von Mises institute. But in Utah, at least, a key indicator is coming much sooner. The party caucuses to determine, among other things, whether candidates will face primary elections, are to be held next Tuesday, and Mr. Herrod said the states rights’ crowd would attend and push for change. “Those politicians who don’t understand that things are different are in big trouble because a few people showing up to caucus can have a big influence,” Mr. Herrod said. A spokeswoman for Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican — who signed a firearms law like South Dakota’s last month declaring exemption from federal regulation for guns made and used within the state — said Mr. Herbert was still studying the new batch of bills passed this week and had not yet made decisions about signing them.
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
Hi Ada, All modern "states" have formally modified their Statutory law to mirror Federal Territorial Jurisdiction during the Jackson era (sold out to the International Banking community). See your state "Statute on Statutes" for confirmation of this fact and contrast with state Territorial Jurisdiction found in your state's Enabling Acts. This being said, if a "Citizen's Legal presence or domicile" is that of the state he/she is unaffected by the majority of the 50 titles of the USC. If this "citizen" happens to partake in "any Federal benefit" (Social Security for example) or has otherwise agreed to function under the purported 14th, he/she is subject to ALL Federal Jurisdiction regardless of domicile. Please see below for State - Federal Territorial Jurisdiction vs state Jurisdiction (found in Enabling Acts). GENERAL PROVISIONS (5 ILCS 70/) Statute on Statutes. (5 ILCS 70/0.01) (from Ch. 1, par. 1000) Sec. 0.01. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Statute on Statutes. (Source: P.A. 86 4; 86 451.) (5 ILCS 70/1.14) (from Ch. 1, par. 1015) Sec. 1.14. "State," when applied to different parts of the United States, may be construed to include the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" may be construed to include the said district and territories. (Source: Laws 1945, p. 1717.) VS Illinois Enabling Acts (also found at Illinois first three Constitutions at article 1 in 1818, 1848 & 1870): “Beginning at the mouth of the Wabash river, thence up the same, and with the line of Indiana to the northwest corner of said state; then east with the line of the same state, to the middle of Lake Michigan; thence north, along the middle of said lake, to north latitude 42 degrees and 30 minutes; thence west to the middle of the Mississippi river, and thence down, along the middle of that river, to its confluence with the Ohio river; and thence up the latter river, along its northwestern shore, to the beginning.” “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W. W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.” - Letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373. “The Legislator of Illinois first introduced a Federal Territorial jurisdiction definition found in the Statutes on Statutes in 1845. Prior to this time, no such Federal Territorial definition existed.” – Mr. Kim Efford (ILLINOIS Law Archivist ((2010)) Warm Regards, P.H.
In effect, it’s (The Holacaust Inc.) become like a grotesque doll wielded by witch doctors, used to keep individuals from asking too many questions, from thinking for themselves and stepping out of line.
ALL of these Republicans are a day late and a dollar short in their bleatings, they should have kicked that drunken Jorge Arbusto in his balls when they had their chance.
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#2. To: Ada (#0)
#3. To: Ada (#0)
#4. To: Ada (#0)
#5. To: Ada (#0)
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
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