- There is no constitutional right for individual states to nullify federal laws. This is evidenced by the fact that neither of the words nullify or nullification appears in the Constitution.However, given that the Constitution's history shows that few people have ever bothered to read it in the first place, most people, including lawmakers, evidently basing their understanding of the Constitution on gossip and hearsay, there is nothing stopping individual states from bringing to people's attention the simple rules of Constitution when Congress oversteps its Section 8-limited powers.As I've mentioned elsewhere, note that President Madison had vetoed Congress's public work bill, revealing the following problem with lawmakers interpreting the Constitution. It seems like federal lawmakers who did not attend the Constitutional Convention were inclined to interpret the Section 8 more widely, more liberally, than the delegates to the Convention had intended for Section 8 to be interpreted.Here's a link for President Madison's nastygram to the HoR after he vetoed the public works bill. Madison, a delegate to the Convention and aware of the debate where delegates had rejected the idea of granting Congress the power to build canals, complained that he could not find the word "canals" in Secton 8.So it's up to the evidently few people who have studied the Constitution and its history to get the majority, including Congressmen who have never bothered to read it, up to speed on the Constitution when Congress makes laws that do not comply with the narrow interpretation of Section 8 intended by the Founders.Remember that Congress can always petition the states for new amendments to the Constitution which would grant Congress specific new powers.
- Mea culpa.I'm glad that the question concerning a state's right to nullify unconstitutional federal laws was asked. But now that I look at my initial reply to the OP, I was evidently caught off guard with my reply. Here's a new argument, athough it's a strange one.While people's personal rights must be enumerated into the Constitution, state's rights are protected by the 10th Amendment. In other words, the 10th Amendment clarifies that states automatically have all governmet powers which the states have not expressly delegated to Congress via the Constitution. So by that logic, just as the Constitution's silence about public healthcare and immigration, as examples, means that the states automatically have the unique government power to tax and spend for healthcare purposes and regulate immigration, the Constitution's silence about nullification should mean that the states automatically have the 10A power to nullify federal laws. Yes, it's nonsense that the states would delegate to Congress the specific power to nullify its own laws, but that's arguably how the 10th Amendment works.Again, given that modern history of the Constitution shows that federal and state lawmakers and judges ignore the Constitution, people getting themselves elected as members of Congress, for example, mainly to steal taxpayer dollars, I think that it's appropriate for patriots who do study the Constitution to take a stand and let people know when Congress oversteps its Section 8-limited powers, particularly where the laying of constitutionally indefensible federal taxes are concerned. In fact, the 10th Amendment arguably reserves such power, the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws in this case, to the people.
- While people's personal rights must be enumerated into the Constitution, state's rights are protected by the 10th Amendment.I respectfully disagree with the first part of your sentence. While some Individual rights are indeed enumerated, IX A. leaves no doubt that the enumerated rights do not encompass all rights; therefore 'must be enumerated' is incorrect, imo.
- I agree with you in principle about IX Nathan. But note that a few of the Founders, including James Madison, had discouraged a bill of rights, essentially arguing, and in my words, that since Congress hand't been delegated the power specific power to address religious issues for example, that the 1A right of religious expression was essentially redundant. And Alexander Hamilton had noted a related problem with respect to amending the Constitution.In fact, not only had Hamilton warned, in my words, that every additional word that is added to the Constitution gives slimeball lawyers another foothold to butcher the Constitution, Hamilton knowing what he was talking about because he was a slimeball lawyer, but consider the following. Activist justices had used IX to legislate the so-called right to privacy from the bench, applying that nonenumerated right to the states via 14A, later using nonenumerated right to privacy again in conjunction with IX and 14A to argue applying the nonenumerated right to have an abortion to states.So the USSC's sleight-of-hand using IX to protect nonenumerated privacy and abortion rights is an example of what Hamilton had warned against concerning drafting the BoR imo. The states have to amend such rights to the Constitution, imo, before USSC can apply such rights to states via 14A.In fact, note that John Bingham, the main author of Sec. 1 of 14A, had clarified that 14A applies only enumerated personal rights to the states.
- "Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution." --John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1871.
Again, I agree with Madison that, because Constitution which limits federal government's powers was made amendable, no need for IX or other rights amendments; dangerously redundant.
A Shakespeare character had said something similar to, "kill all the laywers."
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- "There is nothing more painful than the insult to human dignity, nothing more humiliating than servitude. Human dignity and freedom are our birthright. Let us defend them or die with dignity"
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist (106-43 BC)
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- It's time for a definition of terms in use here, perhaps.REPUB'LIC, n. [L. respublica; res and publica; public affairs.]"1. A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people..."STATE, n. [L., to stand, to be fixed.]"5. A political body, or body politic; the whole body of people united under one government, whatever may be the form of the government."NATION, n. [to be born]"1. A body of people inhabiting the same country, or united under the same sovereign or government..."COMPACT, n."An agreement; a contract between parties; a word .....generally applied to agreements between nations and states, as treaties and confederacies. So the constitution of the United States is a political contract between the States."So, we are 50 separate nation state republics bound together by contract, by compact, and a federal districtoutside of the 50 signatories. Hence the importance of the 10th amendment...as well as the War of Northern Aggression."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"
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- Here is West on the Immigration issue -
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- “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual - - or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” - Samuel Adams
“A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law.” - Alexander Hamilton
“The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people .” - Thomas Jefferson
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- EPA did this to the middle class worker -
100%. CAN IT GET ANY CRAZIER?
NO, THIS IS NOT A PARANOID FANTASY. IT'S REAL.
The Oakland Bay Bridge, an iconic American landmark in the San Francisco Bay, is being built with millions of dollars of Chinese-made steel.
We could have made it here. We didn't. And it's just one of many ways China holds us in an economic stranglehold:• The U.S. – China deficit grew from $84 billion in 2001, when China entered the WTO, to $295 billion in 2011 • This deficit has eliminated or displaced nearly 2.8 million U.S. jobs since 2001, representing about 2 percent of total U.S. employment • Of the nearly 2.8 million jobs lost or displaced, 1.9 million were in manufacturing – nearly half of all U.S. manufacturing jobs lost between 2001 and 2010 • In a national poll, 96% of Republican voters say they support keeping America's trade laws strong and strictly enforced to provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses • China owns 9 percent of our public debt 
Speaker Boehner, listen to us: • Take a stand on China's currency manipulation. • Stop China's illegal and unfair trade practices. • Pass H.R. 639/S. 328 – NOW! Will Washington have the courage to act? Tell Congress to hold China accountable 
We've handed them our future, buying and borrowing like mad. So when unfair trade practices have cost 2.8 million Americans their jobs, Congress does nothing. When our trade deficit with China hits a new record, we fail to curb our insatiable desire for their artificially subsidized exports.
This is more than economic suicide. It's a national security threat that requires urgent action by Congress.
Will Washington have the courage to act?
Tell Congress to hold China accountable
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- You seem to consider the federal judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, a very dangerous doctrine, indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have with others the same passions for the party, for power and the privilege of the corps. Their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves. - Letter to William Charles Jarvis (1820) Thomas Jefferson
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Goldwater Institute Daily
June 20, 2012When Will Free Speech Be Free?by Nick DraniasYou know things have gotten out of hand when a government agency can’t figure out its own rules. The Federal Election Commission recently was unable to give a grassroots group clear guidance on whether its proposed political advertisements concerning health care, regulatory, and fiscal issues were regulated under federal elections law. The group gave the Commission 11 proposed political advertisements for the presidential election season to review. In response, the Commission reached split decisions on two different draft opinions and then finally agreed upon a third opinion which declared that it could not reach a decision on whether five of the 11 advertisements were regulated under federal campaign finance laws.
The Federal Election Commission seems to be trying to dance around, or even ignore, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent free speech ruling in Citizens United. The central principle enforced in Citizens United is that the First Amendment means what it says — “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech.” Justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized in his opinion that there is no such thing as an insignificant denial of free speech. The opinion also underscored that the First Amendment is violated when complex campaign finance laws force people to hire lawyers and accountants before they can safely spend their money to engage in protected political speech.Under Citizens United, the mere fact that the Federal Elections Commission could not reach a clear decision after three bites at the apple should be sufficient evidence of the unconstitutionality of the campaign finance laws it is charged to enforce. No one should be left with little more than casino odds to guide decisions about the legality of running political advertisements during election season. Fortunately, Goldwater Institute senior fellow Benjamin Barr and the Wyoming Liberty Group will soon challenge these laws, underscoring that free speech is not free so long as the meaning of campaign finance laws remains murky even to the Federal Election Commission.Nick Dranias holds the Clarence J. and Katherine P. Duncan Chair for Constitutional Government and is director of the Joseph and Dorothy Donnelly Moller Center for Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute.Learn More:Federal Election Commission: Advisory opinion response (PDF)Wyoming Liberty Group: In re Free SpeechGoldwater Institute: Citizens United Policy ReportRead the online version of this daily email here.
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- Comment by on September 12, 2011 at 10:15amRe oath of office and perjury: Here is the problem: EVERYBODY in all 3 branches of the federal government violates their Oaths of office to a greater or lesser extent. [Clarence Thomas is the only one I know of who is relatively innocent.] Same for State & County officials. So, when law breaking is this widespread, it's a systemic moral problem, not a legal problem.
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