HF 423

as introduced - 92nd Legislature (2021 - 2022) Posted on 01/28/2021 02:17pm

A resolution
memorializing Congress and the President to support the principles of federalism.

WHEREAS, our nation was organized by the Constitution with a clear division of civil
authority between the federal government and the individual states; and

WHEREAS, the Constitution contains several provisions intended to establish and preserve
that proper balance of civil authority between the federal government and the individual states; and

WHEREAS, those provisions in the original Constitution include, in Article I, a Senate with
equal suffrage for all states, equal suffrage for the House of Representatives when selecting a
President, and a specific limitation of federal authority with the enumerated powers of Congress.
In Article III there is a specific list of original jurisdictional authorities for the Supreme Court and
Congressional control of appellate jurisdictional authority for the Supreme Court. In Article V equal
suffrage is required for all states when proposing and ratifying constitutional amendments; and

WHEREAS, in the Bill of Rights certain rights of the people are enumerated in the first eight
amendments and the Ninth Amendment reserves all unremunerated rights for the people; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment clearly 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"; and

WHEREAS, James Madison said in Federalist #45: "The powers delegated [that is,
enumerated] by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those
which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former [federal
powers] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers
reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs
concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and
prosperity of the state"; and

WHEREAS, James Madison warned in 1792: "If Congress can apply money indefinitely to
the 'general welfare,' and are the sole and supreme judges of the 'general welfare,' they may take
the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every state, county, and
parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education
of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the
regulation of all roads other than post roads. In short, everything, from the highest object of state
legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of
Congress..."; and

WHEREAS, in 1791 Thomas Jefferson wrote: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution
as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond
the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a
boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition"; and

WHEREAS, in 1800 Thomas Jefferson wrote: "What an augmentation [growth] of the field
for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an
assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the [federal] government. The true theory of
our Constitution is surely the wisest and best: that the States are independent as to everything within
themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations"; and

WHEREAS, Richard Henry Lee, in 1788 wrote: "In forming a federal constitution, which
ex vi termini, supposes state governments existing, and which is only to manage a few great national
concerns, we often find it easier to enumerate particularly the powers to be delegated to the federal
head than to enumerate particularly the individual rights to be reserved;" and

WHEREAS, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in 1833: "Let us never forget that
our constitutions of government are solemn instruments, addressed to the common sense of the
people and designed to fix and perpetuate their rights and their liberties. They are not to be frittered
away to please the demagogues of the day. They are not to be violated to gratify the ambition of
political leaders. They are to speak in the same voice now and forever. They are of no man's private
interpretation. They are ordained by the will of the people and can be changed only by the sovereign
command of the people"; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota, on behalf of all the citizens
of this individual state, that it renews its commitment to all of the unalienable rights of its citizens
and all of the constitutional civil authority reserved for the individual state of Minnesota.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota is directed
to prepare copies of this memorial and transmit them to the President of the United States, the
President and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk of the United
States House of Representatives, the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Minnesota's
Senators and Representatives in Congress.