Michigan Votes Forum

hurry and vote this thing! its been at judiciary since march!

Senators Cropsey and Patterson asked and were granted unanimous consent to make statements and moved that the statements be printed in the Journal.

The motion prevailed.

Senator Cropsey’s statement is as follows:

This resolution, if taken to heart, probably would affect us as a state legislature maybe more so than any place else in the United States, when every state legislature says, “You know what? The federal government has enumerated powers that are spelled out in the United States Constitution.”

There was a lot of controversy when the Constitution was adopted. The controversy was why do you need a Bill of Rights? If the federal government is only supposed to do what is enumerated in the current Constitution, then you don’t need a Bill of Rights because they can’t do anything beyond that. They can’t worry about freedom of speech and freedom of the press because they aren’t even supposed to get into that area. The people’s rights are safe in the sense that the federal government will not encroach upon it. That was the Federalist viewpoint.

The anti-Federalist viewpoint was, “We understand what you are saying as Federalists, but we still don’t trust the government to do what it is really supposed to do; that it will stay within its enumerated powers.” They said, “We want to make sure that we have these rights enshrined in our Constitution.”

The Tenth Amendment was added basically to say to the people of the country, “Just because we have put these first nine amendments onto the Constitution doesn’t mean that that is giving any power to the federal government.” It’s like the Constitution is putting on a belt, and this also puts on the suspenders to make sure that we are binding the federal government to its delegated powers. The Tenth Amendment is saying just because you have enumerated certain things the federal government can’t do doesn’t mean that they can start doing other things.

The Tenth Amendment was critical in reaffirming what the Federalists said, and it was critical in order to get things passed as far as our Bill of Rights. It is very unfortunate when you take a look at our federal government today that it has been going into areas that are way beyond the scope of the Constitution of the United States. I wish that every federal judge, every United States Senator, every United States Representative, and the President would take a good look at the Tenth amendment, the history of our Constitution, and get back to a constitutional form of government. They have gone so far beyond where they are supposed to be and what the founders envisioned. A lot of what the federal government is doing should have been left up to the people and the states.

I want to thank the sponsor of this resolution and the following resolution for bringing this to our attention to once again remind us that we need to get back to federal principles and fundamental principles that made this country great.

Senator Patterson’s statement is as follows:

Today is a most auspicious day. It is Constitution Day. On this date in 1787—222 years ago; perhaps some might even remember—famous words, “We the People,” were adopted by our Founding Fathers as a part of our Federal Constitution. The Constitution is a document rich in history and unique to the fact that this country has established the blueprint for self-governance.

As we know, but sometimes now and again we need to be reminded, a few years later in 1791, ten amendments to that Constitution were adopted. Thus, the Bill of Rights were enshrined in order to accentuate the intent of the Founding Fathers who had a protracted and vigorous debate over what type of country they wanted to hand on to future generations.

One of those Bill of Rights amendments was the Tenth Amendment, which we will all recall states that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states and we the people. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 4 and Senate Resolution No. 17 serve to remind us, those serving we the people, that a positive grant of select authority—select, specific limited authority—was being extended by we the people to those whom they chose and entrusted to serve.

The resolutions that we have today are really very simple votes to cast. Every one of us knows, before we undertook the responsibilities and obligations of our office, we in accordance with our Michigan Constitution swore an oath under Article 11, Section 1, to uphold the Constitution and to embrace the intent of those limited specific authorities granted by we the people. It is not an all-encompassing grant, but rather a specific limited authority extended by we the people.

The votes on these two items are relatively simple. We have already sworn that we will faithfully discharge and uphold, but we must understand that we are always being tempted; thus, the fulfillment of the obligations. The honor that we swore, in spite of the temptations extended by both the Democrats and the Republicans to exceed the limited delegation, is always before us. Please be cautious in not to violate your oath by exceeding the limited delegation in the discharge of your sworn duties.

I know that you will all do the right thing. We owe it to the people.

Meaningless.

 Except that, of all the meaningless things they do, this at least shows someone understands the states have rights.

This is like putting a band aid on your hand in case it would get cut. It does no good, just waste a band aid. Better to save the band aid for when you do get cut.