NULLIFICATION

As a response to a Congress that doesn't represent their citizen's interests, state Legislators are looking to nullification as a way to reject any national freedom robbing edicts.

Arizona has a proposed State Constitution Amendment that will override any lawthat requires individuals to participate in any health care system. If approved by voters,HCR2014 would prohibit any fine for purchasing healthcare directly. Five other states are considering similar initiatives:Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming. This follows a state nullification of the 2005 Real ID Act, which was nullified by 14 states.

According to an article by Michael Boldin , June 26, 2009 on the Tenth Amendment site,

"When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective’, within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.

Nullification has a long and interesting history in American politics, and originates in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. These resolutions, secretly authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, asserted that states, as sovereign entities, could judge for themselves whether the federal government had overstepped its constitutional bounds, to the point of ignoring federal laws.

Virginia and Kentucky passed the resolutions in response to the federal Alien and Sedition Acts, which provided, in part, for the prosecution of anyone who criticized Congress or the President of the United States."

"Groups across the political spectrum have focused their efforts on this same principle – calling on state governments to not just say no to the federal government, but to actively resist federal laws and actions.

• Firearms Freedom Acts have passed in both Montana and Tennessee, and under the force of law, call on those governments to refuse federal regulation of firearms made and kept in those respective states.
• Bring the Guard Home is a campaign of mostly antiwar activists that are calling on governors to assert constitutional authority over their state’s guard – and refuse to deploy troops for any reason other than authorized by the constitution
• Medical Marijuana Laws - have passed in multiple states around the country and are directly opposed to federal drug laws that see marijuana as illegal under all circumstances.
• Real ID legislation has passed in approximately 2 dozen states requiring state governments to refuse implementation of the 2005 law.
• Health Care Freedom Acts are being actively pursued in six states (including Arizona), and would resist proposed national health care legislation on a number of levels."

“The main point that nullification aims to address is that a government allowed to determine the scope of its own powers cannot remain limited for long. This is a lesson we should have learned by now. Moreover, since piecemeal solutions to reducing federal power have accomplished nothing, we can hardly afford to dismiss out of hand the idea of nullification, a remedy that is at once creative and intelligent, and recommended by some of the greatest political thinkers in American history.”--Thomas E. Woods, historian

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN