Florida Senate - 2016                                    SM 1384
       
       
        
       By Senator Hays
       
       11-01086A-16                                          20161384__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         urging Congress to honor the limits of federal power
    4         as enshrined by the Constitution of the United States.
    5  
    6         WHEREAS, the Florida Legislature holds that the first
    7  principle of education, and therefore of education policymaking,
    8  is that parents are the primary educators of their children, and
    9  because responsibility for the education of children lies
   10  primarily with their parents, so too, to the greatest extent
   11  possible, should decisionmaking authority over elementary and
   12  secondary education in the State of Florida, and
   13         WHEREAS, the Florida Legislature trusts that the educators
   14  of Florida, and not the politicians or bureaucrats of
   15  Washington, D.C., are better equipped to determine academic
   16  content for their students and to ensure the success of each
   17  child enrolled in a Florida public school, and
   18         WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
   19  United States declares that: “The powers not delegated to the
   20  United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
   21  States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
   22  people,” and
   23         WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the scope of federal
   24  power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of
   25  the United States and no more, and
   26         WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment unequivocally sets forth that
   27  we, the people of the United States of America and each
   28  sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have
   29  always had, powers that the Federal Government may not usurp,
   30  and
   31         WHEREAS, a federal role in education is a violation of the
   32  original intent of the Constitution of the United States and the
   33  Tenth Amendment, and
   34         WHEREAS, nowhere in the Constitution of the United States
   35  is the Federal Government delegated the power to regulate
   36  elementary or secondary education, and
   37         WHEREAS, because education is not an enumerated power
   38  delegated to the Federal Government by the United States
   39  Constitution, it is reserved to the states respectively or to
   40  the people, and
   41         WHEREAS, the Florida Legislature, which is directly
   42  accountable to the citizens of Florida, is the appropriate body
   43  to empower parents and educators to determine academic content,
   44  free from any pressure from the United States Department of
   45  Education, NOW, THEREFORE,
   46  
   47  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   48  
   49         (1) That the Congress of the United States is urged to end
   50  all current, and prohibit any further, interference by the
   51  United States Department of Education with respect to state
   52  decisions regarding academic content standards;
   53         (2) That all compulsory federal legislation that interferes
   54  with the sovereign State of Florida’s constitutional authority
   55  over educational standards and materials through civil threat,
   56  sanctions, criminal penalty, or loss of federal funding be
   57  repealed and prohibited;
   58         (3) That this memorial serves as a notice and demand for
   59  the prohibition of federal programs that incentivize states to
   60  adopt certain academic standards or that require states to pass
   61  specific education legislation in order to maintain federal
   62  funding; and
   63         (4) That this memorial serves as notice to the Congress of
   64  the United States that it is the duty of the Florida Legislature
   65  to exercise its constitutional authority to resist and overturn
   66  any interference by the Unites States Department of Education or
   67  the United States Congress relating to Florida’s academic
   68  standards and educational materials.
   69         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
   70  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
   71  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
   72  United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
   73  the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.