Our View

BOX
Proposed Amendment
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ARTICLE I, SECTION 28 SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATE —Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to assert the sovereignty of the state and declare the right of the people of the state to refuse to comply with federal mandates that violate the Constitution of the United States.
(Senate Bill 1240, House Bill 679)

Finally, Bill McCollum is showing life and leadership.

Florida’s attorney general took the lead Tuesday among 13 attorneys general around the United States, filing a joint lawsuit in federal court in Pensacola declaring Obama-PelosiCare unconstitutional.

McCollum said in a statement the joint lawsuit “should put the federal government on notice that we will not tolerate the constitutional rights of our citizens and the sovereignty of our states to be trampled on. This law represents an unprecedented encroachment on the liberty of the American people, and I will pursue this litigation to the highest court if necessary.”

Hear, hear. Go, Bill, go.

The other attorneys general joining the suit include those from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho and South Dakota.

There is movement on another front in Tallahassee as well. State Sen. Stephen Wise and state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, both Jacksonville Republicans, have joint resolutions pending that would put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. The measure would assert the state’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and declare that Floridians refuse to comply with any federal mandates that go beyond the constitutionally delegated powers of the federal government.

Our own senator, Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, has a similar bill pending, though it is not seeking a state constitutional amendment.

And, to complete the anti-Obama-PelosiCare opposition in Florida, U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio has begun a petition drive online to repeal the health care bill (http://www.marcorubio.com/repeal-it).

Predictably, the mainstream media have rushed to so-called legal experts for their pronouncements that all of these efforts have little hope of being successful. This, of course, is how the British first acted when the American Colonists began showing resistance to the Brits’ freedom-snatching usurpations and confiscatory taxation.

Never underestimate man’s opposition to slavery and tyranny and his innate desires for freedom.

Combine the dynamics of the day, and it is not out of the realm of possibility for the seeds of secession to sprout. We would gladly water them.