Senators Confused About Constitution

Senators Davis, Hill, Lodge, McGee, Malepeai (Sagness), and Stennett all voted in 2008 “to direct the Idaho Transportation Board and the Idaho Transportation Department not to implement the provisions of the REAL ID Act of 2005.” Senator McKenzie was MIA for that vote.

But last week these same Senators all voted in the State Affairs Committee to kill HO117, which would have prevented the implementation of ObamaCare in Idaho.

Same principle. Now they're claiming that interposition by state government to protect the liberty of the people violates the Constitution. Has the Constitution been amended since 2008? No. The proper role of government is still the protection of liberty.

So did they violate their oath of office in 2008 or in 2011? Their constituents should be informed about this dishonerable misrepresentation so they can judge.

Why do state legislators swear to uphold not only the state, but also the U.S. Constitution? Because state legislators have a role in enforcing the U.S. Constitution, just as everyone does who takes that oath. All unconstitutional power grabs are inherently null and void, unless nobody calls their bluff.

The History Lesson Washington D.C. Doesn't Want You to Know

Enemies of freedom have always used racial and religious differences to divide people while they take more power for themselves. It's no different today.

The Greatest Story Never Told: Another black history month is nearly gone, and it's another year where the government-schools and the pundits fail to teach Americans an important history lesson...the one that goes like this - "OK, for all these years, we've been telling you that states' rights and nullification was evil and all about racism. It's not and we're sorry for lying. In reality, for over a decade before the civil war, states' rights and nullification were used to resist federal slave laws and protect the rights of African Americans in those difficult times."

The Underground Railroad and the Coming of War
It was about states' rights, Northern States Rights: Students accustomed to equating states’ rights with South Carolina may be stunned to learn that it was the Wisconsin Supreme Court asserting the nullification doctrine in the mid-1850s!

The Untold History of Nullification
Resisting Slavery: Few Americans have ever heard the heroic story of how the people of Wisconson and several other states stood up to the federal government’s tyrannical, unconstitutional slave laws with the help of their elected state officials. It happened so much that South Carolina decried northern nullification when they announced their secession.

Video of Senator Pearce asking you to be at the nullificat​ion hearing!

Elizabeth Allen Hodge of Legislative Watch interviews Senator Monty Pearce. This video is about H0117, Idaho's ObamaCare nullification legislation that will be heard in Senate Committee on Friday, the 25th at 8 AM at the State Capitol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hh2jHAawM4



Senator Pearce is one of our courageous state legislators who is unafraid of taking on the federal government in order to protect Idaho's citizens. But he can't do it himself - he is asking YOU to be there on Friday to support this bill. Please put other plans on hold and take the time to attend the hearing - even if you don't testify, your presence there will make a huge difference. For those of you who do want to have your voice heard - you can testify in person at the hearing, or you can leave a written testimony with the clerk. Be sure your contact info is included with it.

This is it, people! This is our chance to draw the line in the sand that we have been waiting for!

We may not get another chance to fight this horrendous bill - so PLEASE MAKE THE TIME FOR THIS HEARING AND BE THERE FRIDAY MORNING, Feb, 25TH - 8 AM - STATE CAPITOL, basement, senate auditorium.

PLEASE PASS THIS FAR AND WIDE - we need to contact as many Idahoans as possible.

Violent Media Hypocrisy

If conservatives are responsible for the tragic shooting of a Congresswoman in Arizona over a month ago, then liberals are responsible for the recent outbreaks of violence directed towards certain Idaho public servants. Following this line of reasoning, it's the liberal media, teacher's union and their demonizing rhetoric that have escalated the situation to violence.

The media conveniently ignored the Arizona Shooter's Leftist Connections To Ayers, Obama during their non-stop coverage, Politicizing Ariz. Mass Shooting to Demonize Guns, Conservatives instead.

Where's their righteous indignation and universal condemnation of violence now? The more recent hostile confrontation and destruction of property in Idaho triggered little more than a news blip that was inexcusably dismissive of numerous related threats of thug tactics against Idaho public servants.

The Idaho Education Association said, “We cannot and will not let stories like this distract us... remain focused on the goal of defeating legislation that is bad for Idaho children and teachers.” And their media lapdogs obeyed.

Move along people. There's nothing to see here.

Idaho's ObamaCare Nullification Bill Is Constitutional

This excellent article quotes from the Constitution and the Federalist Papers to rebut the opinion of Idaho's AG that Idaho's healthcare nullification bill is unconstitutional.

The last election demonstrated that the American people do not want nationalized health care. One of the first things the new Congress did was repeal it. Idaho's two congressmen voted for repeal.

On Monday another federal district court judge agreed with 26 state-government plaintiffs, including Idaho, and ruled that the new national health care law is unconstitutional, and that the entire law must be voided.

The lawsuits and the fight to repeal this in Congress will likely last for years. Many have concluded that the best strategy is nullification on a state-by-state basis. With so much of our freedom and prosperity at stake it is highly advisable to pursue all three strategies.

Nullification refers to the process by which a state passes a law declaring certain federal laws to be null and void within that state based on the absence of constitutional authority for the federal government to pass such laws. Historian Thomas Woods has written an excellent history of state nullification of federal laws in his book, "Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century."

In recent years dozens of states, including Idaho, have introduced various nullification-type bills to stop Real ID, to affirm the Tenth Amendment, to reject federal firearms laws for guns manufactured, sold, and used intrastate (known as Firearms Freedom Acts), and to reject the federal mandate to buy healthcare insurance. With a couple dozen states taking a stand against various aspects of the Real ID Act, this federal program has been effectively stopped.

At least twelve states, including Idaho, have introduced bills this year to nullify the entire new health care law!

These twelve bills would nullify the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” and “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” because they were not authorized by the Constitution of the United States. Nearly all of these state bills have a provision for criminal penalties for federal and state agents who would try to enforce the federal mandate within that state.

Idaho estimates that nullification will save state taxpayers initially more than $228,000,000!

It's appalling that some would waste our time and taxpayer dollars implementing this unconstitutional federal mandate, another bureaucracy like those that have never worked and cannot succeed and will only further destroy our freedom and prosperity.

While it appears that we are on the way to having nullification bills introduced in 20 or more states within the next year, it is necessary to get as many as possible of the already-introduced bills passed. It's hard to predict the course of events in this situation, but it would be a healthy first step toward restoration of federalism, where states are asserting their Tenth Amendment powers as parties to the compact that created the federal government in the first place.

The states should rein in our out-of-control federal government by enforcing the Constitution through nullification of unconstitutional federal mandates!

Click here to send an email message in support of nullification of the entire ObamaCare law to your state representative, state senator, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. We must stop ObamaCare before it destroys our healthcare system!

Nullifying good journalism



by Michael Maharrey

AP reporter John Miller provides a textbook example of sloppy, agenda driven “journalism” in a piece headlined GOP invokes 1700s doctrine in health care fight published on Jan. 26.

Miller cobbles together a report clearly reflecting his personal opinion on the subject, and while he would surely argue that the story holds completely to the facts, he links those facts together in a way that leads the reader to his forgone conclusion.

Perhaps Miller doesn’t know any better, but he also omits vital information, leaving the reader with an incomplete understanding of nullification. He can either plead ignorance, making him a lazy reporter, or he left those bits of information out on purpose, making him an agenda driven hack.

Either way, he earns low marks as a professional journalist.

Let’s look at some specifics.

Miller sets up his assumption in the language of his lede graph.

“Republican lawmakers in nearly a dozen states are reaching into the dusty annals of American history to fight President Obama’s health care overhaul.”

Note the wording – dusty annals of American history. In other words, nullification isn’t really something to take seriously. It’s old. (He re-emphasizes that point when he mentions Jefferson “philosophical guidance” 211 years ago.) Old means irrelevant and arcane. And if it’s old, irrelevant and arcane, you need not pay attention to it.

Miller frames the story with the loaded language in his opening graph and proceeds to hang it nicely inside.

He goes on to declare the notion of nullification unconstitutional. His source? “Most legal scholars…”

Presumably, Miller interviewed or at least read the opinions of most legal scholars in this country.

Or not.

Nowhere does he bother to cite any cogent opposing viewpoint. And it does exist. In fact, the logic is quite simple. He should be able to grasp it, even with all of the time spent talking to “most legal experts”. Quite simply, if Congress passes legislation reaching outside of its constitutionally prescribed delegated powers, it is not law at all, but an unconstitutional act – by definition illegal. The Constitution stands as the supreme law of the land, not the court. And unconstitutional acts cannot hold a place of supremacy over a state law.

Miller spends the next several graphs describing other radical “conservative” activities. They don’t have anything to do with nullification, but they fit the frame, so he throws them in.

I love some of the loaded language. “Anti-government angst running high.” “Tea Party crowd.” “Secession.” Miller clearly intends to paint nullification the color of extremism – right wing extremism to boot. He doesn’t come out and say it, of course. That would be non-objective. He lets the language serve as his brush.

Finally, he gets into the origins of nullification, lazily hanging the entire concept on the writing of Thomas Jefferson. I have to give him credit for basically explaining the Kentucky Resolutions correctly, all in one sentence. Well, except for the incorrect date. But why quibble? Anyway, after his cursory explanation of the principle’s origin, Miller simply sweeps the third president’s idea aside in one sentence.

“And his beliefs on nullification were nothing more than his opinions…”

I suppose I could say the same about “most legal scholars”. Or supreme court justices for that matter.

But I digress.

At this point, Miller takes the opportunity to create a little “gotcha” moment. He quotes Idaho Republican Sen. Monty Pearce saying Jefferson was at the constitutional convention.

Miller writes:

“Actually, Jefferson was far away, in France, as the framers met in 1787 in Philadelphia to replace the Articles of Confederation.”

Good one John!

But perhaps Miller should have included the fact that James Madison, considered the father of the Constitution, wrote the Virginia Resolution the same year, mirroring Jefferson’s reasoning. And that Madison laid out the fundamental principle of state resistance to overreaching federal power in Federalist 46.

But then again, who cares? That was just Madison’s opinion.

Miller moves on to assert, “Nullification has been invoked several times over the years — to no avail.”

He mentions the tariff act that South Carolina fought in the 1830s. He points out that it “nearly provoked armed conflict.”

Nearly, but it didn’t.

In fact, the feds backed down, and in a compromise, agreed to roll back the tariff over time. Sounds like at least a partial win for South Carolina. But that doesn’t fit the template.

And Miller fails to mention to modern cases of successful nullification. Numerous states refused to implement the Real ID act of 2005, rendering the act functionally void, and 15 states have defied federal law and implemented medicinal marijuana programs, without tanks rolling through the streets.

Finally, near the end of the story, Miller gets around to citing an intellectual source on nullification. But not before a little character assassination. Thomas Woods earned his undergrad degree in history from Harvard. He holds a masters and Ph.D. from Columbia University. But Miller doesn’t mention these credentials. He does mention that “as a college student in 1994, Woods helped found the League of the South, an Alabama group the Southern Poverty Law Center says has become a ‘neo-Confederate group’ seeking a second Southern secession.”

In other words, Woods is a racist and what he has to say isn’t relevant, but here it is anyway. Never mind that the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t exactly count as an unbiased source of information. And never mind that Woods no longer has any association with the League of the South. (Yes, Miller did mention this fact as an afterthought. But really, why mention the association at all? What does it have to do with the story? Oops. Sorry. Asking too many questions.)

Interestingly, Miller fails to tell us anything about the organizational memberships, paper subjects or college hi-jinks of “most legal scholars”, Idaho Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane, or David Gray Adler – all sources asserting nullification is an unconstitutional, archaic concept.

But I’m sure Miller thoroughly checked all of their backgrounds to make sure there was no ties to any progressive advocacy groups and no skeletons in their closets. No dirty laundry there for sure.

Miller makes a mockery of journalism with this story. Agree or disagree with the concept or wisdom of nullification, it has its roots in the founding philosophy of the nation and in the original understanding of the Constitution. It was invoked frequently in the first century of the Republic’s existence, by members of every political party, in the north and in the south. It stands on solid philosophical ground and has been successfully utilized in the last decade.

But Miller doesn’t bother to get into any of those complex nuances. Miller doesn’t bother to provide a balanced story explaining nullification. Miller doesn’t even bother to fact-check his work to make sure he gets something as basic as the date of the Kentucky Resolutions correct.

In short, he fails to do the basic job of a fair objective journalist.

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of '98 - Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here.