State legislators and the 10th Amendment

Nullification and Interposition - The powerful 10th amendment:

"the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

State legislators in several states are beginning to rediscover the tremendous clout they could exert on the national government by employing the hammer of the 10th amendment on the onerous laws and mandates that Congress has become accustomed to passing despite their obvious unnconstitutionality!

Obama-Care (the Affordable Healthcare and Patient Protection Act) does not meet the Constitutional requirements and the law is being challenged by Attorneys General from over 1/3 of the States. Court battles are a long process and address very specific aspects of the law. The fact that so many states are challenging Obama-Care via the courts is encouraging.

The 10th amendment can be used by state legislators to nullify Obama-Care and challenge it on constitutional grounds.

When enough states get on board the nullification movement it will be a very powerful voice from the people to force congress to begin the process of repealing this socialistic act.

The 10th amendment has a history of making Congress back down from their passage of bad laws and mandates. Beginning with the Alien and Sedition act, the Fugitive Slave Act of the early Republic to more recent nullification efforts by the states with States' passage of:

1. Firearm Freedom laws
2. "opting out" of Real ID (nationalized Identification card)
3. other states' challenges to federal law

Illegal Immigration and State Laws

Any law, whatever the motivation, must adhere to the principles protected in the Bill of Rights.
Very few issues are as critical as the illegal immigration problem. I oppose amnesty or support any current bill in congress that uses "comprehensive immigration reform" in its language since "comprehensive" is a dead giveaway for "amnesty." However, regarding the actions by the states to try to control the illegal aliens, State laws must be in harmony with the Constitution particularly amendment Four.

Amendment Four of the "bill of rights" says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their PERSONS, housing, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,shall not be violated,and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." [emphasis added]

In Oklahoma the legislators avoided the constitutional ramifications of expanding police powers to use "reasonable suspicion" on the part of police to stop anyone they suspect of being here illegally.

Oklahoma's House Bill 1804 has caused 30% of the illegal alien population to exist the state. Similarly New Mexico could adapt the "No Gravy Train For Illegal Aliens" law.

A simple statement by the state legislature to city, county and state government officials stating:
"Each state, county and municipality shall pass a law making it illegal to provide anything whatsoever to an illegal alien. (emergency medical care is the exception)
1. It shall be illegal, by state law, to provide anything at all to illegal aliens including, but not limited to: welfare, Medicaid, driver's license, business license, government housing, tax supported education, or any other assistance.

2.There will be no state tax deductions for payments to illegal aliens.

3 All government transactions will be done in English (ie: voter registrations, employment applications, permits, etc)

For the private sector:

It shall be illegal, by state law, to do anything at all for an illegal alien, including but not limited to:

1.rent housing, sell real estate, sell vehicles, sell mobile homes, make loans, sell insurance, provide employment, provide indigent care, cash checks, enroll students, or provide transportation other than back to their country of origin.

Babies Cry out to be Born

Congress is not the sole consciousness or the final and only protector of our God-given rights. The states are sovereign entities that have just as much right to speak up for the rights of the unborn as any other branch of the federal system. In fact the question of overseeing equal protection of the laws belongs to the states.

In 1859 the Wisconsin Supreme Court said:
"Resolved, That the government formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. That the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infractions; and that a positive defiance of those sovereignty's, of all unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy."

50 individual sovereign states share a big stake in protecting and serving to insure that all Americans, including the tiny unborn human beings, have a voice in their legislator. They are not yet born but they deserve a stronger voice than they've been getting from state lawmakers.

When the states joined in convention in 1787 they produced the federal system (central government). Federalism was born when the 9th state ratified the Constitution and this new system was on its way. http://www.usconstitution.net/rat_nh.html in 1789.

Regarding the issue of abortion the states had laws criminalizing it. In 1974 Richard Nixon's nominee ( Harry Blackmun) of the Supreme Court thrust the federal government into this clearly state issue with Roe v.Wade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Blackmun

What can a state legislature do to remedy this issue and stop the killing of unborn children? And what can Congress do to check the courts?

The state legislatures can petition Congress via a resolution or memorial calling on Congress to use its powers under Article III, section 2 to "regulate" the jurisdiction of the lower courts in the matter of abortion.

Getting Congress's attention is step one and if 30 or more states did so the tide would turn from congressional apathy in using Article III, section 2 to rescue the unborn from abortion labs to action by Congressmen to interpose on behalf of the unborn.

The clause reads: "..the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme [C]ourt shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
{ added emphasis}.

In other words, Congress can take away the lower courts' power to rule on abortion by a simple majority vote in Congress or an override of a presidential veto. The long arduous road of a constitutional amendment would not even be necessary if Congress would just realize the power they have at hand to stop the human death toll in the womb.

As your state legislator I will use the voice of the tenth amendment to the Constitution to be that voice in Santa Fe to champion their God-given rights to live, cry out their joy to be born and to be allowed to grow up as free Americans.

"Anchor babies"

A misreading of, or a deliberate misinterpretation of the 14th amendment, has given rise to the phenomenon called "anchor babies." The children born to non-American parents are seen by and judged to be citizens by liberal judges who have overstepped their authority in reinterpreting the 14th amendment.

Think about the absurdity of this concept of granting automatic citizenship to babies of illegal aliens born in the USA. If an American citizen was on a vacation in some European country and the mother unexpectedly gave birth a month early in Belgium, the fact that her child was born in Belgium territory does not automatically make that child a Belgium citizen. Yet in the USA a mother from a Latin American, Canadian or Middle eastern country who births her child in the United States is granted automatic citizenship.

What is wrong with that picture?

Everything in my opinion.

Congress needs to clarify the intent of the 14th amendment. This one Congressman is doing his best:http://www.jbs.org/news-center/birchtube/924-Bilbray+on+KUSI+Birthright+Citizenship+Bill?userid=79

Amnesty

If I am elected to represent the 28th House district I will introduce and fight hard to pass a tough Pro-New Mexico, anti-illegal immigration bill similar to the one passed in Oklahoma. The legislators in Oklahoma apprached the issue from the standpoint of cutting off illegal aliens from welfare, food stamps, obtaining driver's licenses, free schooling for their children, non emergency medical care, opening up bank accounts and opening up businessness using matricular consulate cards as their ID document. While the Arizona law may have all the attention I believe that the Oklahoma law is far better in that it doesn't force a "real ID" type card upon all citizens along with the illegal aliens.

Amnesty
is raising its ugly head again with Harry Reid's S 9 bill in the Senate and H.R. 4321 in the House which goes by the ridiculous title of "Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). It has a nauseating tag which makes its full title of CIR for "America's Security and Prosperity" sound like the North American Union.

The Gutierrez/ Ortiz and Reid bills are part of same ole' dog and pony show. Both bills have the smell of the usual promises which seem to be forgottenonce the law passes. Gutierrez and Ortiz's propaganda says that we Americans will be secure from terrorism and the recession will end. "I kid you not", as a famous late night talk show host used to say.

These "liberal" politicians like Luis Gutierrez and Solomon Ortiz, both Texas congressmen, insist that "we can not get on the road to financial recovery and growth without enacting 'comprehensive immigration reform.'"

The absurdity of their claim that legalizing millions of illegal aliens (perhaps as many as 20 million) is said with a straight face before cameras knowing full well that these millions will be competing with the U.S. dwindling jobs market. Are these Congressmen brain dead or do they have an agenda to ruin us economically by using the influx of millions from Mexico and elsewhere as a battering ram on our over-regulated, over-taxed and hard-pressed economy?

Nullification by the states of ObamaCare

What can New Mexico's legislators do to stop ObamaCare? The answer is "A lot!"

The US Constitution by agreement with the original 13 colonies joined in an honorable contract with the federal government in 1789, (an entirely new system of government that the several states had created), to enumerate the powers the federal system was to have but reserved the balance of power to the states. Amendment 10 clearly states that all powers not "delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." One of those many undefined powers is to have the ability to "nullify" or interpose on behalf of the citizens of the several states anytime the federal system passed an unconstitutional law or act. The states weren't going to just trust congress to behave accordingly and trust that Congress would only pass constitutional laws. The states, if need be, would use their power to tell the federal government "thanks, but no thanks" should congress stupidly or deliberately pass a law contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Congress has passed many laws that have caused the states to react with acts of nullification. Historically the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was one such law that Congress passed that resulted in the states challenging its constitutionality. Several of the northern states passed nullifying laws such as the "personal liberty laws" to countermand the federal law.

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/03/04/the-states-rights-tradition-nobody-knows/

In Prigg versus Pennsylvania the Supreme court decision weakened the Fugitive slave Act by ruling that states did not have to offer aid in the recapture of runaways. However, the pig-headedness of proponents of the Fugitive Slave Act reacted by making the Act even more onerous, which forced the states to react with court challenges. In 1854 Wisconsin's high court ruled the fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court ruled against the Wisconsin court in 1859. This back and forth battle betwen the states and the Congress and federal courts continued until the end of the war between the states.

Where else has the nullification powers been used? Of recent vintage the states essentially nullified Real ID Act.

Could a resolution be introduced at the next legislative session of the state of New Mexico to block the 25 bureaus, agencies and departments of the federal government from carrying the provisions of the Afforable Healthcare and Patient Protection Act (ObamaCare)? If I am elected as a state Representative for New Mexico district 28 I will introduce such a resolution.

Visit my website at: www.leerichardgonzales.com