by Brian Roberts
The people of Texas proudly boast that everything is bigger in Texas. Our most renowned state slogan is “Don’t Mess with Texasâ€. But Washington DC is messing with us, that much is undeniable. And what is Texas doing about it? Not much… It reminds me of the following scene from Animal House. Who knew Kevin Bacon was so closely related to Texas?
So, where the hell are our state representatives? The people of Texas did their job in the last election, at the ballot box we said “hell no†to the abuses of power coming out of Washington and the daily encroachment on our constitutionally protected state sovereignty. We voted in a Texas house primed to fight back… or so we thought. The Texas House is stacked with Republicans. I think we are looking at 101 Rs to 49 Ds… but apparently the R by the name is not enough. I personally think that much was derailed when Straus became speaker again (how did that happen?) but that’s another article itself.
While other states are busy passing legislation that denies unconstitutional federal laws, our Texas legislature is working hard to block and deny any real attempts to pass similar laws in Texas. In fact Texas, you know the “Don’t Mess with…†state has not passed a single law that resembles a nullification of a federal law.
Other states are busy protecting their citizens. For example just last week Governor Otter signed an executive order banning Obamacare in Idaho (http://www.localnews8.com/news/27614296/detail.html), and the North Dakota legislature passed a version of the Tenth Amendment Center’s federal health care nullification act. Where is Texas’ Obamacare nullification bill?
The EPA has singled out Texas and has its sights set to drag our economy in the abyss with the rest of the country. I wrote about this last year (http://texas.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/05/the-epa-can-go-to-hell-and-i-will-go-to-texas/) . Texas bill HB 3188 starts to address this, but it’s going to be a tough road to get this passed. Why? This should be a no-brainer.
Another bill sponsored by tea-party backed David Simpson and strongly supported by the Tenth Amendment Center nullifies TSA’s illegal searches and invasive scanners in the state of Texas. Simpson’s bill is popular in Texas but Republicans and Democrats alike are making moves to bury the bill based on imaginary charges of parliamentary procedure violations. I’ll post more on this soon.
So with a house filled with Republicans, Texas legislators are seemingly unwilling to pass a single nullification bill. Wow! Worth repeating: with a house filled with Republicans, Texas legislators are seemingly unwilling to pass a single nullification bill. I suppose everything coming out of DC must be golden (or at least constitutional?). Note the sarcasm.
Michael Boldin, Founder of the Tenth Amendment Center had this observation:
“Of all the states in the union that should have a reputation of nullifying unconstitutional federal acts, people tend to expect Texas to be leading the pack. But, from my vantage point, the real Texas slogan should be ‘Mess with us, Please!’ because Texas hasn’t nullified a single thing. And now, there’s all kinds of excuses being thrown around as to why legislators are backing off TSA nullification bills. Business as usual, I guess.”
And adding salt to wounds… the Texas Legislative session closes out on May 31st and won’t be back in session until 2013.
Brian Roberts [send him email] is communications coordinator for the Texas Tenth Amendment Center