The Tenth Amendment and The Coalition of Red States

Guest Editorial by Retired US Army Major General Paul E Vallely

Jerry EmeryApril 2, 2024

0 158 6 minutes read

Source used with permission: The Coalition of Red States
By retired US Army Major General Paul E. Vallely
The Tenth Amendment and The Coalition of Red 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.

It is well beyond time for the Conservative Red States and their Governors to stand up and step forward to exert their powers under the 10th Amendment and challenge and overturn the unconstitutional, overreaching, illegal acts of the Federal government. Our states are being invaded by hordes of illegal border crossers funded and supported by the Biden White House, his Department of Homeland Security, the Mexican Cartels, and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Stand Up America US Foundation has launched a demand by the people for the Red State Governors to be formed immediately, meet, and develop a strategic plan to save the Republic. It must be done now and well before the 2024 elections.

Because the Tenth Amendment concerns the relationship between the federal government’s powers and those powers reserved to the states, it is sometimes invoked—implicitly or explicitly—in cases exploring the limits of Congress’s various enumerated powers. These decisions are primarily addressed elsewhere in the Constitution, Annotated under the enumerated federal power.

The key issue in the Tenth Amendment doctrine, as such, is whether the Amendment imposes affirmative limitations on federal power beyond the limits inherent in the various enumerated powers themselves. In other words, assuming that an enumerated power supports congressional action in a particular area, may the Tenth Amendment (or the federalism principles it confirms) render the legislation beyond federal power? And, if so, what are the contours of the limitations that the Tenth Amendment imposes?

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on these questions has not followed a straight line. The Court has sometimes stated that the Tenth Amendment lacks substantive constitutional content and “does not operate as a limitation upon the powers, express or implied, delegated to the national government.” At other times, the Court has found affirmative federalism limitations in the Amendment, invalidating federal statutes “not because Congress lacked legislative authority over the subject matter, but because those statutes violated the principles of federalism contained in the Tenth Amendment.”

The Supreme Court’s Tenth Amendment jurisprudence has gone through several cycles. In the 19th century, Chief Justice John Marshall’s landmark opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland rejected the notion that the Tenth Amendment denied implied or incidental powers to the federal government, adopting an approach to assessing congressional power focused not on the Tenth Amendment itself but the larger constitutional context.

In the early 20th century, the Court relied on the Tenth Amendment to strike down various economic regulations as invasive of the police power reserved to the states by the Amendment. Beginning in the late 1930s, many of these decisions were overruled or limited as the Court embraced a broader conception of Congress’s Commerce Clause power and the view that the Tenth Amendment does not bar federal action necessary and proper to exercise federal power.

Tenth Amendment doctrine then laid largely dormant until the mid-1970s. In National League of Cities v Usery, the Court relied on the Amendment to hold that Congress may not use its commerce power to “directly displace the States’ freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.” Less than a decade later, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, however, the Court overruled the National League of Cities as “unworkable” and “inconsistent with established principles of federalism” while implying that the Tenth Amendment lacked any judicially enforceable protections for state sovereignty.

In the 1990s, the Court changed course again, holding in New York v. United States that the Tenth Amendment prohibits Congress from “commandeering” the states—directly compelling them to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. The resulting “anti-commandeering” doctrine has been the subject of a line of Supreme Court cases continuing to the present.

Starting with the 2000 United States presidential election, the terms “red state” and “blue state” have referred to U.S. states whose voters vote predominantly for one party — the Republican Party in red and the Democratic Party in blue states — in presidential and other statewide elections.[1] By contrast, states where the vote fluctuates between the Democratic and Republican candidates are “swing states” or “purple states”. Examining patterns within states reveals that the reversal of the two parties’ geographic bases has happened at the state level. Still, it is more complicated locally, with many of the most significant changes associated with urban-rural divides. Incumbent senators. Red and blue denote two Republican or two Democratic senators, respectively. Purple states denote one Republican and one Democrat from the state. Light blue stripes denote one independent senator (that caucuses with the Democrats).

All states contain considerable liberal and conservative voters (i.e., they are “purple”) and only appear blue or red on the electoral map because of the winner-take-all system used by most states in the Electoral College.[3] However, the perception of some states as “blue” and some as “red” was reinforced by a degree of partisan stability from election to election — from the 2016 presidential election to the 2020 presidential election, only five states changed “color”; and as of 2020, 35 out of 50 states have voted for the same party in every presidential election since the red-blue terminology was popularized in 2000, with only 15 having swung between the 2000 presidential election and the 2020 election. Although many red and blue states stay in the same category for long, they may switch from blue to red or red to blue over time.

To bring our national establishment to heel and to counter provocative actions taken by foreign and domestic enemies, we must:

1. Establish honest 2024 and future elections. Paper ballots, voter ID, same-day voting, and voting systems that cannot connect to the Internet or any outside control or influence must be set up. Election Fraud or interference is a criminal act. We cannot allow foreign governments to control our elections.

2. Update the definition of Treason to specifically include non-kinetic war, including Mind War, Unrestricted War, Cyber Warfare, and Bio-War. We must end foreign donations to elected officials through family or corporate connections. Severe criminal penalties for this new form of treason need to be enacted urgently.

3. We must stop the security state from being weaponized against political opponents. NSA and CIA activity against citizens must be halted pending an overhaul of the system. FBI kill teams must be held accountable. Raids on churches, priests, and ministers must stop.

4. Government censorship or propaganda must be banned. There is no “Ministry of Truth.” This is not Stalin’s Russia. Obama’s legislation allowing propaganda in the United States must be canceled. It smothers the First Amendment.

5. The stolen 2020 Election and the J6 coup need to be investigated entirely (with criminal penalties) before the next election. The CCP elected Joe Biden, not the American people.

6. Borders must be controlled, and dangerous illegals must be deported or jailed.

7. Enact legislation and an Amendment to our Constitution prohibiting any foreign influence, treaty, or Executive Order that will endanger or weaken our national sovereignty. We also need local militias and the 2A to ensure “law and order” and personal safety.

These actions must be taken before the 2024 elections. Failure to do so should also be considered a TREASON against our republic.

Thomas Jefferson once stated, “Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.”

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