The states rise up against Washington:
“People are becoming more and more concerned about the overreach of the federal government,” said center spokesman Mike Maharrey. “They feel the federal government is trying to do too much, it’s too big and it’s getting more and more in debt.”
The 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights reserves to the states powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution. States have long used it as a tool to protect themselves against regulations.
Though federal law trumps state law, Maharrey said states are learning to exercise their own power by pushing back.
Without the resources to enforce its laws, the federal government is forced to rely on state action. When states refuse, federal law becomes virtually unenforceable, he said.
“States were always intended to be a check on federal power,” Maharrey said.
Yes. I also like the Article V solution.
We need more checks on power, not fewer. And that works both ways–the federal government can also serve as a check on state power. But all of these checks vanishing has done us no end of harm. Popular election of Senators, Congress improperly delegating legislative power to the executive, courts “deferring” to legislatures, and so on, all bad.
If a non-political person (who may lean left or right) complains about Washington DC, I bring up Federalism as a solution. I tell them that it isn’t fair that 70 percent of our welfare money is spent on a bureaucracy. It is much fairer if that money goes to the state capitol where we can put greater scrutiny on it. I also point out that our hard-earned money goes to states that we may disagree with. Almost immediately their heads begin nodding.
It is a simple solution that takes care of most of our problems. And in Washington State it has the added argument of pot legislation. Lefties understand that a stronger federalist system means they get to keep their pot.
People want solutions, and this is an excellent one. They also hate other states taking their money or telling them what to do, and again, this is the solution.
I saw CNN guy arguing with an Alabama judge, who ruled that same sex marriages cannot be performed in Alabama. I didn’t listen to the details, but it seems Alabama as a state defined marriage, and the judge either didn’t believe the US Congress defined marriage as between two people of any gender or that anyone in the US Government had a right to define as protected by the tenth. What I noticed was the guy , whose job is to report the news, kept telling the judge that “I understand you want to block the law”, which is interesting because the judge was clear that he was basing his decision on Constitutional law, while the CNN guy kept referring to a Supreme Court case, as if the Supreme Court wrote a law. It seemed the CNN guy was out of his depth.