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Bills would cut federal clout in Virginia Date published: 1/18/2010
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND --Last year's "tea parties" and health care town halls gave voice to a groundswell of concerns about federal government spending and encroachment into people's lives.Now those concerns are finding voice in state legislation aimed at limiting the federal government's power. Several members of the Virginia House of Delegates, including Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania, have submitted bills that aim, in various ways, to restrict federal influence. Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, has put in bills to exempt Virginians from federal health care mandates. Cole has a similar bill. He has also introduced legislation to restrict federal oversight of commerce by saying that federal interstate commerce laws and regulations don't apply to goods and services made and sold in Virginia that don't cross state lines. Cole also has a resolution urging Congress to establish a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Cole said his bills reflect a feeling that the federal government has taken its powers too far and is infringing on the constitutional rights of states and individuals. "This is kind of percolating up from the grass roots. In the last couple of years, it seems like the federal government has just gone off the deep end," Cole said. "It started under Bush, so this is not a partisan thing. People are genuinely afraid for the future of the country." Some of those fearful of federal authority will bring their voices to Richmond today. Backers of the Second Amendment will be lobbying for relaxed gun laws, while Virginia Tea Party members will converge on the legislature backing 10th Amendment legislation. Cole thinks the current reach of federal regulations is not how the Founding Fathers originally intended the separation of federal and states' rights. Some congressmen also think the government of which they're a part is going too far. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st District, said he has no objection to bills like Cole's and Marshall's, especially those that would reject federal health insurance requirements, and thinks the question of states' rights is "a very timely and necessary issue. "We absolutely need to make sure there's a distinction," said Wittman, who was visiting the state Capitol in Richmond. "That effort to delineate what the federal government should be doing and what the state governments should be doing is a very timely issue."
into matters of State governance beyond what the
Constitution delegates, is the interstate commerce clause.
The clause was inserted simply to avoid the States from
gouging each other with export/import taxes and other
obstructions to free trade among the States. That is all the
framers wanted. The Feds now use it to bludgeon States into
line on everything.
Another weapon is revenue sharing. If a State doesn't bend
over, the Feds don't give back any tax money they grabbed
form their citizens.
There have been instances when the feds have said they have the power to regulate commerce that is within the states and never crosses state lines. I believe this was a decision regarding voting in a small town in N. Carolina by the Justice Dept. It truly was an overreach of federa; power which is becoming widespread under this admin. Also it is not a matter of whether there should be rules but rather who should enforce them. The Constitution is clear. It is NOT the fed. Go Mark!
When the feds control anything, any product, service, or action, it is not our representatives doing the controlling. Rather it is a bureaucracy that has control; a bureaucracy that we do not control unless we enforce the Constitution and its limits on the federal government. Anyone who does not understand that, does not understand the Constitution or what it means to be a free American. That is what Del. Cole?s legislation and other states' are about: reestablishing control of the fed govt.
I couldn't have summed up your posts any better. How apropos. So perfectly poignant.
isn't there something to be said about goods produced in state being covered. Sure that may have made sense back in the day when it was harder to transport goods long distance. But why wouldn't that be a concern now when I could easily purchase something in state and intend to bring it to Maryland to sell. I'd be hesitant to say that interstate commerce shouldn't cover that.
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