RANDY BARNETT & WILLIAM HOWELL:
Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.
Why amend the Constitution in this way?
The Repeal Amendment would help restore the ability of states to protect the powers "reserved to the states" noted in the 10th Amendment. And it would provide citizens another political avenue to protect the "rights . . . retained by the people" to which the Ninth Amendment refers. In short, the amendment provides a new political check on the threat to American liberties posed by a runaway federal government. And checking abuses of power is what the written Constitution is all about.
I think this is probably a good idea. However, I'm not sure 2/3 of the state legislatures would ever act to repeal a federal law or regulation. Still, I think it would probably be good if a number of state legislatures made efforts today to push this amendment. It would probably be a good thing is there were more people who looked at the Constitution and compared and contrasted the government implied by the Constitution to the governments we have today.
1 comment:
This repeal amendment is great but it won't work till the states collect the taxes for the federal government. The feds carry way too much power on their side by being able to withhold funds on states that don't agree with them on X issue.
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