Good news out of Kansas this week, from the Kansas City Star:
So many people showed up to protest what they say are attacks on Kansas’ sovereignty that at least a hundred had to wait outside the room.
The occasion was a hearing in a Senate committee on a resolution urging the federal government to respect the 10th Amendment and back away from mandates imposed on the states.
The resolution is symbolic, but its sponsors say it sends a message that many Kansans are unhappy with the federal government’s power over the states.
“It says simply ‘don’t tread on our freedom,” said the bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, a Shawnee Republican.
Health care reform was mentioned most often as a cause for concern, but attendees also pointed to federal immigration policy, abortion rights, environmental regulations, gun control, the Recovery Act and laws that threaten to take away federal funds if the states don’t meet certain requirements.
The resolution is part of a growing grassroots movement in state legislatures across the country as a protest to the intrusion of the federal government into state government affairs.
In 2009, 38 states introduced similar resolutions, and 7 states passed them, garnering some significant national media attention for these efforts. Already in 2010, at least ten states, most recently Wyoming and Rhode Island, have introduced sovereignty resolutions and “the next step,” nullification of specific federal laws, has been gaining traction in states around the country, too.
CLICK HERE to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s 10th amendment resolution tracking page