North Dakota Republicans control the Senate 40-7 and the House 80-14. If this were a Democrat state passing a sanctuary bill for illegal aliens, the bill would pass in a day. Given that the rights of American citizens are on the line, Senate leaders Randy Burckhard and Rich Wardner should bring this bill to the Senate floor, and Speaker Kim Koppelman should bring the bill to the House floor immediately. North Dakota has an opportunity to lead the nation in liberty, if only all the Republicans in the state would govern the way they campaign.
Madison predicted in Federalist No. 46 that a federal encroachment would easily be mitigated by state action, because
"the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand."
What is the winning formula?
"The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter." [Federalist No. 46]
In other words, public outrage, state and local officials refusing to enforce it, and correspondence with counterparts in other states together in unison would prevail over federal tyranny.
South Dakota already has a similar bill to HB 1164 targeting Biden's executive lawmaking. Rep. Aaron Aylward of Harrisburg, South Dakota, introduced HB 1194, which would set up an executive board to review the constitutionality of executive orders pertaining to the six issues laid out in the North Dakota legislation. With a 32-3 majority in the Senate and a 62-8 majority in the House, South Dakota Republicans have the strongest majorities since the Eisenhower era. The Dakotas, as well as many other parts of the country, can easily become constitutional sanctuaries.
Let's be very clear: The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution subordinates states to follow only laws that are pursuant to the Constitution on issues that were given over to the federal government to determine. However, if the federal government blatantly violates the Constitution, especially in a way that harms individual liberty, even Alexander Hamilton, the great supporter of a powerful national government, said that states should ignore it.
"It will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land," wrote Hamilton in Federalist No. 33.
"These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such."
Well, if it was good enough for Hamilton, it should be good enough for states with strong Republican majorities in the legislature.
There is no doubt that Biden's presidency will take a bite out of our economy, especially with his cancelation of the international pipeline going through North Dakota. But if tyranny itself takes root and grows within the boundaries of these solid red states, then we as conservatives have nobody to blame but ourselves and our own complacency.
The question is whether the members of the North Carolina General Assembly who call themselves 'patriots' and who deem themselves worthy of their responsibility as state leaders will pick up the mantle to question and challenge the powers and actions of the out-of-control federal government, not to mention whether representatives (Republicans and Democrats) in other states will do so as well.
[References: (1) Daniel Horowitz, "North Dakota Legislators Introduce Bill to Block Biden's Illegal Executive Edicts," The Blaze, February 3, 2021. https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-north-dakota-legislators-introduce-bill-to-block-bidens-illegal-executive-edicts
(2) Jack Davis,
"North Dakota Republicans Move to Wrest Control from Biden, Place Power Back with the Constitution," The Western Journal, February 6, 2021. https://www.westernjournal.com/north-dakota-republicans-move-wrest-control-biden-place-power-back-constitution/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee&fbclid=IwAR0PKa0CCok2J0er4JK1zaKVf3Mg7c_mcrWL8ztknpWR-TNR4ggaimIKqC4 ]
(19). Finally, this last item should be discussed with our DC reps: The US Congress (of which a group of ambitious Democrats control) is currently considering a bill titled H.R. 1 ["For the People Act" of 2021' -[https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text?q={%22search%22:[%22hr1%22]}&r=1&s=1]. One of the most notable features of H.R. 1 is that it strips states of the right to set their own standards for how elections are to be conducted. Election laws will be determined at the federal level. Under this bill, states would be required to promote the use of mail-in voting, to offer online applications for voter registration, and to provide automatic and even same-day voter registration. H.R. 1 would all but eliminate voter ID laws. It would prohibit states from
"requiring identification as a condition of obtaining a ballot." However, the bill would allow a state to require
"a signature of the individual or similar affirmation as a condition of obtaining an absentee ballot." After all, we must protect the integrity of our elections. In Section 1005, the bill seeks to prohibit a state
"from requiring applicants to provide more than last four digits of Social Security number." Currently, in some states, if an individual without a driver's license registers to vote, an applicant is required to supply the full Social Security number. THIS WOULD BE A PERFECT TIME FOR NORTH CAROLINA TO FINALLY ENACT A NULLIFICATION BILL. It must REFUSE to enforce the particulars of this extremely tyrannical bill.
ADDENDUM I. (NORTH CAROLINA STATE SOVEREIGNTY RESOLUTION, drafted by Diane Rufino)
NORTH CAROLINA STATE SOVEREIGNTY RESOLUTION
RESOLUTION to ADOPT a STATE SOVEREIGHTY BILL, RE-ASSERTING NORTH CAROLINA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Whereas, the state of North Carolina acceded into the union of States, established by the compact that is the Constitution of the United States, as an independent and sovereign state;
Whereas, with its accession, North Carolina did not enter into a position of unlimited subordination to the general government, but ceded only certain enumerated and defined powers, reserving to itself the residuary mass of rights to self-government (which was established by the limited and express delegation of powers to the federal government and then restated in the Tenth Amendment);
Whereas, in considering for ratification of the Constitution of the United States, the conventions of a number of the States expressed concern regarding the potential for the abuse of the power to be ceded to a general government and subsequently, at the time of their adopting the Constitution of the United States, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its power, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses (ie, a Bill of Rights, and other amendments) should be added to the document (indeed, Massachusetts adopted the Constitution under the strict condition that a Bill of Rights be added, and North Carolina, New York, and Rhode Island only ratified under the promise and understanding that a Bill of Rights would be immediately added);
Whereas, a Bill of Rights was incorporated as the first ten amendments to the Constitution, with amendments one thru eight (1-8) recognizing certain liberty rights that the federal government would be bound to respect and would not be permitted to regulate (ie, to deny, abridge, burden, or chill), amendment nine recognizing that the People have other liberty rights not specifically articulated, and amendment ten re-affirming the federal nature of the government system and re-affirming that the federal government is one of limited and express powers while the States retain all others (the "reserved powers");
Whereas, by its very words and intention, the Constitution represents a federal system whereby the powers of government are split between the States and the federal government., and just to make sure the federal government never mischaracterized the system or misconstrued this intent, the Tenth Amendment was added by a demand of the states;
Whereas, the Preamble to the US Bill of Rights explains the great importance of our first ten amendments. It states: "The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;
Whereas, the "beneficent ends" included in the Preamble refer to the intention of the States to respect their sovereignty and to preserve Liberty, the very thing they fought the Revolution for;
Whereas, our Founders warned of the tendency of governments to become ambitious, to consolidate their powers, and in doing so, to burden the liberty rights of their citizens, and they advised and tasked the States to be eternally vigilante with respect to the actions of the federal government, to call out every abuse and infraction of its powers and demand redress, and to be eternally protective of their reserved sovereign powers;
Whereas, Thomas Jefferson, in addressing the first glaringly unconstitutional acts of the federal government (the Alien & Sedition Acts, most obviously the Sedition Act), drafted the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (and then James Madison drafted a companion, the Virginia Resolutions of 1798). In the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson characterized the nature of the relationship between the States and the federal government as follows: "That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes - delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress";
Whereas, Thomas Jefferson explained, in his Kentucky Resolves of 1799, why the States had the right to judge for themselves when the federal government assumes undelegated powers: "That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy..... ";
Whereas, time has shown that the limited language of the Constitution, and even the "further declaratory and restrictive clauses," have failed to achieve their specified intent, which is the constraint of the federal government;
Whereas, since the ratification of the US Constitution, the language and intent of its various articles, sections, and clauses have been incrementally and systematically misinterpreted, reinterpreted, misconstrued, malapplied and or simply ignored through federal executive, legislative, and judicial usurpative action (resulting in a transformation that should have been legally accomplished according to the amendment process of Article V);
Whereas, the actions of one truly tyrannical US president (Abraham Lincoln), assuming powers not delegated and for purposes not within the purview of the federal government, and commandeering the full force and power of the federal government for unconstitutional ends, is not sufficient to justify the legality of those ends;
Whereas, despite the war of 1861-65, the US Constitution has not been amended to alter the relationship between the federal government and the States nor to alter and/or enlarge the powers of the federal government;
Whereas, the result has been the transformation of the government in DC into one much different than what was created by the States (the parties to the compact which was the US Constitution), and one that no longer serves the States as it was intended;
THEREFORE, in consideration of all of the above, We the People of Craven County (the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association), from which all power is vested and consequently derived from in our governance, recognizing that the federal government is unable or unwilling to discharge faithfully the enumerated powers of the Constitution and amendments, or abide by the restrictions contained therein in accordance with the contemporary understanding of the respective article, section, or clause, duly charge the General Assembly of North Carolina to assert the sovereignty guaranteed under The Constitution of the United States, as understood at the time of ratification and jealously protect and defend the inherent rights of its Citizens.
NC STATE SOVERIGNTY BILL
A Bill to Re-Assert State and Individual Sovereignty under the 10th and 11th Amendments and According to the Conventional Wisdom and Understanding of the Constitution as ratified by the State Convention
SECTION I. GENERAL
On May 20, 1775, the North Carolina Assembly, meeting in convention in Mecklenburg County, in outright defiance of the Royal Governor, signed a set of resolutions - called the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and Resolves, or more commonly referred to as The "Mecklenburg Resolves" - declaring North Carolina free and independent from Great Britain. It was the first official declaration of American independence from Britain. The Resolves were delivered to North Carolina's delegates who were attending the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
