Five More States Invoke the 10th (AMENDMENT)

humanevents.com ^ | 03/04/2009 | A.W.R. Hawkins

[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.

[TomGuy]

One step at a time, dad...

[I posted these in earlier threads]

Tulsa, OK Tea Party - After Action Report

Cavuto had a segment on his program yesterday about the various Tea Parties. He had 3 guests.

He complained to them that these 'crowds' were small and 'wouldn't this all just fade into the background?'

I posted this in the thread regarding Cavuto's segment:

Heads Up: Cavuto About to Cover Tea Parties

If the current news media had covered the Boston Tea Party of 1773...

News Alert:

Sons of Liberty Hold Boston Tea Party,
Fewer than 200 show up.

[184 brave men are historically said to have participated in the Boston Tea Party that cold December night in 1773. Their names are listed at bostonteapartyship.com.]

[Colonel Kangaroo]

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.

I think you're on to something about tough climate repelling many of the whining neo-left, but take away air conditioning and Florida and much of the Sunbelt becomes mighty uncomfortable for the soft.

[MrB]

The real tea party involved:

>Destruction of a taxable product to deny revenue to the gov’t.

>The enragement of those in power.

>Actions above that were engaged in with total impunity.

Any new tea party needs to involve these items.

[Billg64]

The revolution has already started. Thing is, we did not start it the other side did. They are changing the fudemental concepts upon which our nation operates.

Our choices are to leave or resist the revolution politically at first, with force as a last measure.

[lgjhn23]

“Secession is not a valid Constitutional concept....”
Neither is the Kenyan Usurper......

[raybbr]

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.

I don't know. I could see CT holding out longer.

[doberville]

The corrupt, Democratic state of MARYLAND will match you convicted felon for felon for that title.

[raybbr]

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.

Rats! I hit the post button too soon. The Constitution was written in CT and I bet only about ten percent of people under 21 here have any idea what it is.

[prismsinc]

Someone in a previous thread (I think he went by Retired_Navy_Vet) posted a claim that Florida already filed its 10th Amendment resolution. Can someone PLEASE elaborate on this?

[prismsinc]

Someone in a previous thread (I think he went by Retired_Navy_Vet) posted a claim that Florida already filed its 10th Amendment resolution back in 1995. Can someone PLEASE elaborate on this?

[BubbaBasher]

Virginia just voted down our 10th amendment resolution. How did our red state turn so blue? :-(

[AFreeBird]

Warms my heart to see Indiana on that list.

[MamaTexan]

Woo-hoo!

32 States so far!

[sneakers]

bumping and bookmarking

[AFreeBird]

Virginia just voted down our 10th amendment resolution. How did our red state turn so blue? :-(

Because it's a bedroom community for DC?

[wombtotomb]

usage fee and fair tax would fix 99% of the ills this country has.

[OKSooner]

" Or some sort of vote of no confidence to start removal proceedings of the House and Senate. "

Now THERE'S an idea.

[Sandy]

“stimulus” legislation which directly assaults the rights of states to reject the money

What are they talking about here? What part of the legislation says the states can't reject the money?

[Just A Nobody]

At the Cleveland (Ohio) Tea Party last week, there was a large contingent from the “Sovern-Tea” group. Many signed their petition to begin the 10th Amendment movement here.

[paulycy]

Virginia just voted down our 10th amendment resolution.

Damn.