Issue Position: The Tenth Amendment

Issue Position

Our nation is on the wrong path. For over a hundred years we have been drifting further and further from the government designed by our founders, to something more closely resembling the writings of Karl Marx. At the heart of this drift, has been our abandonment of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

The Tenth Amendment States:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This amendment makes clear that the federal government is limited in what areas it may govern. Anything outside of what is listed in Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution is up to the states to and local governments to determine. Federal bureaucracies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Education should not exist.

If we limit our federal government to the areas specified in the Constitution, we will have only a small portion of the debt and taxation that is currently overwhelming our nation and its people.

If we were to follow the Constitution, states could try innovative solutions that more closely fit their area of the country. The states and local governments would be laboratories for government. Allow me to explain:

How many of you can remember when we had one large phone company? What was the service like? What were the prices like? How fast did the technology advance? It was poor service, high rates, and few technological advances. Then the phone company was broken up unto several smaller companies and the market was opened for competition. Companies were now in compilation for customers; rates lowed, service improved, and technology exploded. If one company did something right, other companies would soon offer a similar service.

Today, instead of a super-powerful phone company, we have a super-powerful federal government. It offers us poor service, high tax rates, and a declining society. The solution is NOT to break up into several smaller countries; instead we need to give state and local governments the power that our founders intended.

The War on Drugs is a perfect example. Today we have a one size fits all federal policy, which has been a complete and total failure. Name a city or town in this country in which the drug problem has improved since the federal government has taken control. You can't do it, can you? Instead of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, why not let the states determine drug policy? If Colorado finds something that works, other states can copy and adapt what they did. If California does something that fails, others will know not to pursue that path.

It is the duty of the State Legislatures to stand up to the federal government and take back our God-given right of self-government laid out in the Constitution. Washington is not going to reform itself. Even if we had Ronald Reagan as President, with control of both houses of Congress, it would still be heading down the wrong path. Washington is too corrupt; it will not relinquish its unconstitutional power. Reform can only come from an outside source, that source is the states.

As a State Senator, I will oppose any further unconstitutional power grabs from Washington. I will also sponsor and support legislation, which takes back the states rightful power from our corrupt federal government.

Source