What's the Select Committee on State Sovereignty?
Hey, Texplainer: What’s the Select Committee on State Sovereignty anyway, and why was it created?
The speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor both have the purview to create special committees when there’s a pressing issue facing the Legislature — and they don’t want to detract from the business of traditional standing committees.
This session, through a combination of federal health care reform and federal EPA rulings, the issue of state sovereignty — protecting the state from mandates from Washington — is front and center. Between Tea Party rallies and Gov. Rick Perry’s anti-Washington message on the campaign ...
Comments (8)
Mack Simpson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Southern States' rights arguments are so 1948.
Brian Dunn via Texas Tribune on Facebook
State sovereignty committees, elected officials actually reading the federalist papers and other founding documents, nullification & 10th amendment revitalization... A very interesting time we're living in! But we'll see what happens to all of this if Obama doesn't get reelected. Odds are it's back to business as usual and we continue the march toward serfdom...
Rudy Gonzales
Texas' Republican Governor and the Legislators in Austin maneuvering into tactical opposition when they should be working on generating jobs and fixing the 16 billion dollar budget deficit. All alternative political ideologies counter to the federal requirements of the recently passed Health Care Reform Act passed by the 111st Congress are tactical strategies to circumvent federal law, and allow states additional maneuvering to circumvent passed legislation. America has been in decline due to billion dollar corporation subsidies while the richest 1% own 34% of total US wealth. America is in decline due to 100 of 1% of the population average 27 Million dollars per household per year while the top 2% get tax breaks at the expense of the US taxpayer. The rich get richer at the expense of the lower 98% due to efforts of the Republican party. - Source Huffington Post.
Colby Stout
Sounds like waste of the taxpayer's money to me. I guess Creighton is the "Sovereignty Czar". Haha.
Jon Roland
I send a message to committee members and sponsors in opposition to HB 297 which would impose state criminal penalties on federal agents who might try to enforce the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. Nullification of that Act is needed but the language of the bill would be disastrous. See http://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2010/11/flawed-texas-hb-297.html
For similar reasons I will testify against HB 1937, which tries to criminalize the probing by federal TSA agents. Criminalizing the on-duty actions of federal agents is a course that was cut off long ago, starting with a statute that created removal jurisdiction in 1812. My intended testimony is at http://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2011/03/flawed-texas-hb-1937.html
In both I call for the establishment of a Nullification Commission, a kind of grand jury to hear complaints about federal usurpations, and if it finds the actions to be unconstitutional, that finding triggers statewide civil disobedience and non-cooperation with the usurpation. That is the only alternative we have to violent confrontation.
John Tweedell
Texas MUST STAND AGAINST the overreach of the Federal Government. If we do not stand we will become subjects of a tyrant,
Jon Roland
Yes, we must stand against federal (and state) usurpation, but we have to do it intelligently and competently. That is why I have proposed the Nullification Commission approach. (Google it.) The alternatives that have been proposed amount to little more than yelling and stomping feet. Venting in useless ways is not the way forward.
Jon Roland
As an example of a state constitutional defect, the State of Texas has not established gold or silver as legal tender within the State, which are the only things it may make legal tender under the U.S. Const. Art. I Sec. 10 Cl. 1. Texas statutes only reference legal tender of the United States, but the United States Congress has no constitutional authority to make anything legal tender within state territory. Therefore, there is no legal tender defined in the State of Texas. With no legal tender defined, there can be no substitution of anything of equivalent "fair market value" for payment of any claim or debt.