The FEDERAL GOV HAS GONE MAD! Now they want us to PAY $6,000 a year per person for health care, or go to jail. The answer is in our own backyards! The States can stop every bit of it! That's right, the individual States can stop "Obamacare" and all other forms of out-of-control federal government mandates and "big brother" tactics. If Arizona, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Texas, etc. want nothing to do with National Health care as proposed by Barack Obama or Congress, then all they have to do is say "No!"
http://www.henrymakow.com/the_states_can_tell_the_feds_t.html
Local support grows for nullification
of federal laws
Some scholars say it's illegal
but happens unofficially.
Debra Medina Has been rallying supporters for nullification.
Gov. Rick Perry Attended a 10th Amendment rally in Plano.
Leo Berman Says he'd support nullifying legislation that appears socialist.
The stale old campaign issues education, toughness on crime, taxes have
lulled countless voters into inaction for years. But sometimes an issue
comes along that energizes a portion of the voting public. This is
one of
those times.
Politicians and voters haven't discussed the issue of nullification
in about
a half-century. But now it's back. And several candidates and incumbents
are
chattering about writing state laws that would neutralize federal ones.
IS IT LEGAL for a state to say this federal law stinks and abrogate it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_(U.S._Constitution)
As the wave of NULLIFICATION enthusiasm grows, some academics have been
waving their
arms in an effort to slow the tide by saying that the official nullification
of federal laws just isn't legal.
That said, some professors have admitted that a sort of unofficial
nullification can sometimes occur.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina
has been rallying supporters
with nullification talk for quite a while now. She might be one of
the
drivers of the concept's increased popularity in Texas.
At a rally Jan. 16, Medina seemed to be trying to shame Texans into
supporting the issue.
"Thirteen-plus sister states have passed nullification language to stop
the
federalization of health care," she said. "Texas sits on our hands."
She also told the crowd that Montana nullified Real ID, federal legislation
passed in 2005 that required states to adopt security and verification
standards in issuing driver's licenses.
Medina might own the issue of nullification in the race for governor,
but
the incumbent hasn't exactly disavowed the concept.
Gov. Rick Perry, who once skipped past the nullification rhetoric and
went
straight to discussion of secession, has been pretty quiet on the matter
lately. But he recently attended a rally in Plano for the 10th Amendment,
which some people believe justifies the nullification of federal laws.
He might not have called for nullification, but his presence at the
rally
sent a message, said Southern Methodist University political science
professor Cal Jillson.
"He is an instinctive politician," Jillson said. "I think he felt like
he
made his point, which is to establish a connection with the tea party
movement and its conversation about an overreaching federal government."
Constitutional scholars, like Jillson, tend to disagree with the
pro-nullification voices.
The U.S. Constitution specifically doesn't allow states to nullify federal
law, according to Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington &
Lee
University. Jost wrote a recent article in The New England Journal
of
Medicine that said nullification is "pure political theater" and
"constitutionally impossible."
Jost's article came after the Virginia Senate passed a bill that would
exempt Virginians from being compelled to buy health insurance if it
were
demanded by federal law.
The legislation was reminiscent of a Texas House resolution by Rep.
Brandon
Creighton, R-Conroe, from the past legislative session. The unspecific,
Perry-backed resolution aimed to give Texas sovereignty under the 10th
Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.
The Texas resolution, the Virginia bill and all other nullification-related
legislation share a common trait, according to nullification naysayers.
None
of them is effective, and they would all be overturned if and when
the
federal government files suit, they said.
"Even a conservative Supreme Court is not going to overturn 200 years
of
constitutional interpretation," Jillson said.
Jillson and other academics point to the Supremacy Clause (Article 6,
Clause
2) of the U.S. Constitution as clear evidence that proves the impracticality
of nullification. It says that federal laws "shall be the supreme law
of the
land."
Words like nullification - and also "interposition," which means states
will
stand between Washington and citizens to prevent federal law from being
enforced - were not used much in the past 200 years.
The words, however, did come up for a time during school desegregation.
In the 1950s and 1960s, segregationists used the terms to argue against
racial integration, Jillson said. Their argument was shot down in the
famous
Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan.
But even with the concept of nullification being widely discredited,
Medina
and a host of other elected officials and candidates have continued
to sign
pledges to push for legislation in support of the 10th Amendment.
Among the Texans who have signed pledges are Creighton; Rep. Rob Eissler,
R-The Woodlands ; Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler ; and Darren Yancy , a Republican
running to fill the seat of retiring state Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco
.
Berman has a history of battling the feds. He has proposed laws dealing
with
undocumented immigrants that even he acknowledged were unconstitutional
but
basically served to pick a fight with the federal government.
But this time, things are different for him: He said he believes he
can beat
the federal government in the nullification fight, despite previous
Supreme
Court decisions that indicate the contrary.
"Supreme Courts change, and they could agree that it is viable or not
viable," he said. "The only way to find out is to challenge it."
Berman, who was a candidate for governor briefly last year, said he
would
support nullification legislation if the federal government, for example,
passed laws supporting cap and trade of air pollutants, health care
reform
or gun legislation.
"Any legislation that appears to be socialist, I will oppose with everything
I can," he said. "Anything that the Congress does or the president
does that
is not authorized by the U.S. Constitution should be left to the states
and
should be challenged by the states."
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, usually is revered by people
in
the nullification crowd, including Berman. But in a speech at Arizona
State
University late last year, Paul said official nullification won't work.
"It was never really successful in our history," he told the crowd.
"But I
think it's going to grow in importance. And I think it's going to grow
because the government, the federal government, will be seen as inept
and
ineffective."
But Paul still encouraged nullification activists - and he continues
to do
so via oft-viewed YouTube videos - to keep up their effort because
unofficial nullification can work.
"I think it'll almost be de facto in the sense that the states will
eventually just ignore some of the mandates," he told the crowd.
Jillson said Paul's assessment of an unofficial nullification was right-on.
As a case in point, Jillson and other observers pointed to the medical
marijuana issue in California. The voters there approved the use of
medical
pot. And while it remains illegal, according to federal law, the federal
government has adopted a policy of not enforcing its law.
The same thing happened with Real ID when the Bush administration delayed
its final implementation until 2017 after significant push-back from
several
states.
Hence, an effective nullification. teaton@statesman.com
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