Florida Senate - 2010                                     SM 178
       
       
       
       By Senator Lynn
       
       
       
       
       7-00078-10                                             2010178__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         urging Congress to cease and desist from certain
    4         mandates that are prohibited by the Tenth Amendment to
    5         the Constitution of the United States; demanding that
    6         certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed.
    7  
    8         WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
    9  United States provides that the powers not delegated to the
   10  Federal Government by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
   11  the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the
   12  people, and defines the total scope of federal power as being
   13  that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United
   14  States and no more, and
   15         WHEREAS, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment
   16  means that the Federal Government was created by the states
   17  specifically to be an agent of the states; however, today the
   18  states are demonstrably treated as agents of the Federal
   19  Government, and
   20         WHEREAS, many existing federal laws and proposed laws
   21  directly violate the Tenth Amendment, and
   22         WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment ensures that the people and
   23  each sovereign state have rights that the Federal Government may
   24  not usurp, and
   25         WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV of the United States
   26  Constitution provides “[t]he United States shall guarantee to
   27  every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” and
   28  the Ninth Amendment states “[t]he enumeration in the
   29  Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny
   30  or disparage others retained by the people,” and
   31         WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court ruled in New York
   32  v. United States, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not
   33  simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of
   34  the states, NOW, THEREFORE,
   35  
   36  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   37  
   38         That the State of Florida hereby claims sovereignty under
   39  the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
   40  over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the
   41  Federal Government by that Constitution; that it further demands
   42  the Congress and Federal Government, as its agents, to cease and
   43  desist, effective immediately, from issuing mandates that are
   44  beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers; and
   45  that all compulsory federal legislation directing states to
   46  comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions
   47  or requiring states to pass legislation or lose federal funding
   48  be prohibited or repealed.
   49         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
   50  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
   51  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
   52  United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
   53  the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.