How California (and every other state) Lost Its Sovereignty

How California Lost Its Sovereignty; by Fred E. Foldvary; Reposted on Liberty For All; 21 April 2007.

“The State of California is supposed to be sovereign under the Constitution of the United States. There is no higher government authority above California. The Constitution provides for parallel sovereignty for the federal and state governments, each with its own realm of authority. The federal government is not supposed to have a superior status. The 10th Amendment emphasizes that powers not specifically allocated to the federal government by the Constitution are held by the states or the people.

“The Constitution endows the states with ultimate sovereignty because they can change the Constitution. Article V of the Constitution states that “on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments” subject to ratification by three-fourths of the states.

“The states have in fact submitted over 500 requests for such a convention to Congress, with the required two-thirds of the states asking for such conventions. The state applications for an Article V convention are registered in the Congressional Record. But Congress has violated the Constitution by ignoring these requests. In so doing, Congress has destroyed one of the checks on federal power that the founders had implemented.

“The states have thus lost their sovereign ability to change the Constitution. This loss was in part the fault of the states themselves when they adopted the 17th Amendment to have a direct election of senators by the citizens rather than the original constitutional provision of having the state legislatures elect their senators. This situation could be reversed by the repeal of the amendment if two-thirds of the states call for it. But Congress refuses to comply.

“Are Americans to have sovereign states as authorized by the Constitution, or will the states be demoted to mere administrative provinces under an all-powerful central government?”

Read the rest here.

Comment: I think it’s fairly apparent to most folks that follow current events that the national government is growing rapidly and becoming too powerful. While the realization of this is only now taking place, the truth of the matter is that there has been a steady march toward the leviathan state since the 16^th and 17^th Amendments were enacted in 1913. Essentially the 16^th allows for national government to reach into your pocket and take your money and fund whatever absurdity the oligarchs’ desire; and the 17^th Amendment subjugated the states to the leviathan giving the oligarchs almost unbridled power. The time has come for the States to take back what was rightly theirs in the first place.

Maybe the path is in Article V. The States have never called for a Constitution Convention, but as events like the illegal alien issue continue to mount and Congress acts without the consent of the people while abandoning the Constitution, the States need to know their rights. The first order of business needs to be the repealing of the 16^th and 17^th Amendments. When that takes place, the Constitution will be partially restored as the founders intended when they created it. It’s time we educated our state assemblies. It’s time the state legislators knew their rights.

In the end all Americans have to answer the question Mr. Foldvary asks, “Are Americans to have sovereign states as authorized by the Constitution, or will the states be demoted to mere administrative provinces under an all-powerful central government?”

Additional Information:

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.