This Resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government,as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates thatare beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.
You may not have heard much about it, but there’s a quiet movementafoot to reassert state sovereignty in America and stop theuncontrolled expansion of federal government power. Almost half of thestate legislatures are considering or have representatives preparing tointroduce resolutions which reassert the principles of the 9th and 10thAmendments to the Constitution and the idea that federal power isstrictly limited to specific areas detailed in the Constitution andthat all other governmental authority rests with the states.
In the version of this bill being considered in Washington state, they appeal to the authority of James Madison in The Federalist who wrote:
“”The powers delegated to the federal government are fewand defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments arenumerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally onexternal objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreigncommerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to allthe objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern thelives, liberties, and properties of the people.”
Thefounding fathers believed in a balance between state and federal power.This state sovereignty movement clearly arises from the belief that thebalance of power has tilted too far and for too long in the directionof the federal government and that it’s time to restore that losebalance.
The emergence of this movement is a hopeful sign of the peopleasserting their rights and the rights of the states and finally crying”enough” to runaway government. With the threat of increasingly out ofcontrol federal spending, some of these sovereignty bills may stand afair chance of passage in the coming year.