Bills Would Limit Federal Power
Date published: 1/18/2010
WRITTEN BY CHELYEN DAVIS
Source: Courtesy of Fredricksburg Free Lance Star
RICHMOND–Last year’s “tea parties” and health care town halls gave voice to a groundswell of concerns about federal government spending and encroachment into people’s lives.
Now those concerns are finding voice in state legislation aimed at limiting the federal government’s power.
Several members of the Virginia House of Delegates, including Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania, have submitted bills that aim, in various ways, to restrict federal influence.
Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, has put in bills to exempt Virginians from federal health care mandates. Cole has a similar bill. He has also introduced legislation to restrict federal oversight of commerce by saying that federal interstate commerce laws and regulations don’t apply to goods and services made and sold in Virginia that don’t cross state lines.
Cole also has a resolution urging Congress to establish a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
Cole said his bills reflect a feeling that the federal government has taken its powers too far and is infringing on the constitutional rights of states and individuals.
“This is kind of percolating up from the grass roots. In the last couple of years, it seems like the federal government has just gone off the deep end,” Cole said. “It started under Bush, so this is not a partisan thing. People are genuinely afraid for the future of the country.”
Some of those fearful of federal authority will bring their voices to Richmond today.
Backers of the Second Amendment will be lobbying for relaxed gun laws, while Virginia Tea Party members will converge on the legislature backing 10th Amendment legislation.
Cole thinks the current reach of federal regulations is not how the Founding Fathers originally intended the separation of federal and states’ rights.
Some congressmen also think the government of which they’re a part is going too far.
Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st District, said he has no objection to bills like Cole’s and Marshall’s, especially those that would reject federal health insurance requirements, and thinks the question of states’ rights is “a very timely and necessary issue.
“We absolutely need to make sure there’s a distinction,” said Wittman, who was visiting the state Capitol in Richmond. “That effort to delineate what the federal government should be doing and what the state governments should be doing is a very timely issue.”
Bills challenging federal authority would likely be challenged in court, if they were to pass.
“Even if it was adopted we’d face an uphill battle in the courts,” Cole said.
But, he added, that’s fine with him. He thinks it’s a fight Virginia and other states need to have.
“All the states need to be pushing back,” he said. “I think the federal government’s actions are contrary to the Constitution.”
Cole thinks bills like his and Marshall’s have support, at least among House Republicans.
One supporter is House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, who said such efforts are “necessary.”
He said high-profile federal legislation last year such as the “card check” union bill and the “cap and trade” environmental bill concerned the business community, but that average voters began to become concerned about federal mandates with the health care bills.
Howell said it’s naive to think that the federal government would change its ways based on a Virginia bill, but a court hearing on such issues would be “very helpful,” especially one involving health care mandates.
“I’m very concerned about the ever-increasing encroachment of the federal government in the state’s prerogatives,” Howell said.
Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
