A New American Revolution Builds

State Economic Sovereignty Now at Stake

The seventeenth amendment to the constitution changed the way senators were chosen, from being selected by state legislatures, to being selected by a direct popular vote. The constitution was set up specifically to ensure that states would have direct and strong voice in the operation of the federal government.  That authority comes not from the Federal Government but from the individual expressing his rights and government control from the local, and county level.

The seventeenth amendment was established by our forefathers so a citizen’s voice would be represented in congress by a vote in the state legislature selecting two senators from each state.  These senators job would be to look after the interest of the citizens of the state instead of their own personal interests to stay in power.  Imagine a Senator not beholding to special interests, lobbyist or the need to seek perpetual funding to stay in office.  Their allegiance before the seventeenth amendment was first to the people of the state not first to the federal government or nationalized party interests and funding mechanisms.

Today of course, Senators are trying to bring home pet projects funded by federal dollars showing they are somehow responsive to the needs of the citizens who elected them to office, but dollars are not what the citizen’s need they need their liberty and freedoms protected.

Look at how with this constitutional change by the liberal progressives, the Senate has become home to representatives of special interests and lobbyist willing to subvert the rights of the common man and give authority to the Federal Government .  Today’s State Senators have proven to be completely nonresponsive under the current fiscal crisis, rubber-stamping trillion dollar-spending programs without consulting the public.  Senators are creating a debt level that can never be paid back in the life times of our families without infinite refinancing higher interest payments, while giving state allegiance to the federal government instead of the state citizens they supposedly represent.

Amendments to the US Constitution by the states require ratification by three-quarters of the state legislatures or to have the states convene a constitutional convention and vote unanimously on the changes proposed to the constitution.  There is a movement by states to convene a new state constitutional convention to stop federal takeover of the freedoms and liberty we hold so dear.

Currently the power grab by the federal government under the leadership of Comrade President Obama is causing states to be concerned about their sovereignty with bail out money offered by the federal government that then require states accepting those funds to give some elements of state control to the federal government in return.  Many states are not accepting federal program bailout funds offered, as they understand the elements of how this power grab will create future problems for state governance from outside demands put on the state by the feds due to the strings attached to accepting federal debt.

Perhaps the greatest power grab occurred by the Supreme Court in a 1942 decision Wickard vs Filburn.  This case came about because a farmer grew wheat on his own land for his family consumption.  The issue was not limited to his in state production but because he just might sell it across state lines, the federal government sought an opinion by the Supreme Court.  This was only for his family’s consumption!

This case opened the door for the federal government under that guise of what may become an interstate commerce issue providing authority for direct federal control of what was wholly within a state’s borders.

This decision allowed the federal government to exercise heretofore-unmitigated control over state sovereignty by throwing out laws affecting private property rights and governmental protections of states’ rights that had been put in place150 years prior to this decision.

Help is on the way! In a bill passed this month, the Montana Legislature  seeks to test state sovereignty, asserting that guns manufactured in Montana and sold in Montana to people who intend to keep their weapons in Montana are exempt from federal gun registration, background check and dealer-licensing rules because no state lines are crossed.

The Montana legislature seeks to reaffirm that “the regulation of intrastate commerce is vested in the states under the 9th and 10th amendments to the United States constitution, particularly if not expressly preempted by federal law. Congress has not expressly preempted state regulation of intrastate commerce pertaining to the manufacture on an intrastate basis of firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition.”

The Tenth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, ratified on December 15, 1791. It states the Constitution’s principle of Federalism, by providing that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states and to the people.

This will no doubt result in a legal showdown over how far the federal government’s regulatory authority extends.  Texas and Utah are also in process of passing similar laws. The federal government has argued that it has authority under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution to regulate guns because they can so easily be transported across state lines.

Based upon the 1942 Wickard vs Filburn case where a farmer just may transport across state lines his product, so is the Great State of Montana ready to take back its freedom and liberty from the tyrannical clutches of Comrade President Obama’s totalitarian marxist-fascist government.