Posted on 02/07/2010 6:15:41 AM PST by wolfcreek
An unexpected feature of this year's gubernatorial race is the revival of certain political notions identified with early American history. Republican candidate Debra Medina in particular has made nullification a major aspect of her campaign, both in her two debates with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry and on her Web site, which includes, under the label "Restore Sovereignty," the message that the U.S. Constitution "divides power between the federal and state governments and ultimately reserves final authority for the people themselves. Texas must stop the over reaching federal government and nullify federal mandates in agriculture, energy, education, healthcare, industry, and any other areas D.C. is not granted authority by the Constitution."
She does not specify the mechanism by which nullification would take place, but, obviously, she appears to believe that the legal authority to nullify is unquestionable, making it only a question of political will.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
NOTE: Sanford Levinson holds professorships in law and government at the University of Texas and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most recent book is ‘Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It).’
As a South Carolinian, I just knew we were kindred spirits.
Nobody made a stir about that case though because the Supreme Court merely upheld a law that more or less everybody except for the plaintiff agreed was constitutional. The concept only became controversial after the court started striking down laws passed by the other two branches.
But little was made of even that at first. The real problem traces to McCulloch v. Maryland, removed some 30 years from the Constitution. See the tail end of my #335 above for more about the problem with interpreting that case as an "authoritative" judgment, despite its subsequent reverence in the law schools and government textbooks.
| > Saying we can’t secede because of a SCOTUS ruling is like saying we > can’t nullify overreaching federal laws. >> Uh, you can't. Sure you can. It's happened before. Here's the legal precedence from 1776:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. -snip-
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. |
First of all 75% of your fellow Texans are against it.
Where do you get that figure? I wasn’t asked, and I know of no one that was...
Fort Hood doesn’t have enough power to do it even if they had the will. Thats a big base, but Texas is enormous. That’d be like asking Ft hood to conquer something a little bigger than Ukraine,,,while standing on top of it’s own very vulnerable logistical tail. What happens to wife and kiddos while the tanks are out conquering Texas?
How does fuel get to the tanks from one end of the state to the other? etc etc,,,
And that doesn’t even account for how many soldiers would be on the Texan side.
Ask Santa Anna how that strategy works in Texas. FOr further edification, review Red Dawn.
But last,, read the treaty by which Texas joined the Union. The right to secede or further divide into other states is spelled out clearly.
“Second there is NO provision for secession or breaking into 5 states.”
You might want to inform snopes of that. It is there,,, exactly that. Texas needs her 10 senators!
Not very likely. Aside from looking like a televangelist, and having some heavy baggage related to his insiders and their cushy lobbying jobs, he will not excite the party base and will have very little attraction to independents outside the state. He may be the tallest midget in the race for governor, but that doesn't mean he would be a viable candidate for Commander-in-Chief.
The right of secession is directly proportional to the rate of federal usurpation.
9th & 10th Amendments, duh.
We can do whatever we d*mn well please, this is Texas.
“Well... I’m a “natural born” Texan”
And as for natural born,, if you wound up getting born elsewhere, you are clearly handicapped. You can only strive to wind up being as Texan as Stephen F. Austin, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, Davey Crockett, and Jerry Jeff Walker. Texas is about freedom of the individual. The US government is clearly about becoming a socialist dictatorship.
Someone has to blink,,,and it won’t be the Texans.
| > First of all 75% of your fellow Texans are against it. 1) How far into the Obama presidency was that poll taken? 2) In this "poll", did the pollsters only ask a handful of pantywaist Liberals at the UT Austin campus?
To answer the third question, if you know a lick about Revolutionary history, it was far less than 100 percent. It was risky and not for the faint of heart. Many Loyalists wouldn't do it of their own accord because they liked being NEW England, were too weak-kneed to even join the Revolutionary Army (fearing retaliation from the King) OR afraid they couldn't make it alone. |
| > First of all 75% of your fellow Texans are against it. 1) How far into the Obama presidency was that poll taken? 2) In this "poll", did the pollsters only ask a handful of pantywaist Liberals at the UT Austin campus?
To answer the third question, if you know a lick about Revolutionary history, it was far less than 100 percent. It was risky and not for the faint of heart. Many Loyalists wouldn't do it of their own accord because they liked being NEW England, were too weak-kneed to even join the Revolutionary Army (fearing retaliation from the King) OR afraid they couldn't make it alone. |
Well if that's the best you do. But that's hardly much of a slap at Kansas.
Alf Landon.
I never said secession was a definite no.
Keep in mind that the states joined together in union. If the very principle of that union is based on the right to withdraw, why can’t a state leave later, just leaving that union?
Except that 37 our of 50 states (44 out of 57 for Barack Obama) didn't join anything. They were admitted, and only with the permission of a majority of the other states as expressed through a vote in both houses of Congress. Why shouldn't leaving require the same?
Well said. “One more thing, Texas would only be the beginning...”
The Feds are a bully, and are long past a punch in the snout. A lot of other state governments would see the writing in the wall. Obama invading Texas would make for some big plot twists in congress. But that damn communist will be brought under control long before it gets that far. He would find his power base eroded right out from under his feet. Really, he already has.
States aren't nullifying anything. They, or The People, are granted all powers not enumerated to the Fed Gov.
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