Here’s a quick roundup of some recent media coverage, and a few additional thoughts too…

USA Today – 02-28
John Adams – not that one, the journalist – did a pretty solid job of reporting….actually giving both sides pretty much equal space.

Michael Boldin, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center, disagrees. The center advocates for states rights based on the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment — that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people.

Boldin said states already have proven their ability to nullify federal law. He points to 15 states that have openly defied federal drug laws by legalizing medical marijuana and 25 states that refused to implement the 2005 REAL ID Act, a law creating a national identification card.

“When enough people say no to Washington, D.C., and enough states pass laws backing them up, there’s not much Washington, D.C., can do to enforce those laws,” Boldin said.

Just a brief mention in the New York Times on 02-28-11:

“There’s been a kind of ramping up,” said Michael Boldin, the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center, a research and advocacy group in Los Angeles. Last year, Mr. Boldin said, many of the bills were simply statements of dissatisfaction or intent. This year, he said, the bills are armed with teeth and recommended penalties. The Arizona bill, for instance, would make it a felony for anyone who tried to enforce federal commerce laws.

The New American had a nice writeup about efforts in Arizona to pass the Intrastate Commerce Act:

Michael Boldin of The Tenth Amendment Center, in writing about Arizona’s bill and resulting felony charges for violators, said that the U.S. Congress has for decades used “a tortured definition of interstate commerce,” and that Arizona is leading the way to rightfully reclaiming the authority to regulate commerce within its own borders

Politics Daily (an AOL News property), had a short blurb – as a follow up to a previous interview I had done with them a couple weeks ago:

“These nullification bills aren’t just sprouting up naturally state by state,” Schweitzer said in an interview. “These notions are cooked up, conjured up and handed down as talking points and bill language that are passed to legislatures around the country.”

Schweitzer didn’t mention specific sources, but Michael Boldin, director of the Los Angeles-based Tenth Amendment Center, takes responsibility for many of the anti-health care bills. “There are 11 states that have taken our model legislation and introduced it verbatim or a modified version,” he said.

World Net Daily continued their regular nullification reports, with some choice quotes:

According to the Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates a return to the constitutionally delegated powers for the federal government, Thomas Jefferson advised, “Whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers … a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”

A multitude of nullification acts already are in the works across the nation on issues ranging from firearms freedom acts that reject some federal gun laws, a rejection of Washington’s mandates on cannabis laws and even Obamacare.

Center founder Michael Boldin said the idea that states would reject a Washington demand is not radical, it’s reasonable. He said what’s radical is “the idea that the federal government can be the final arbiter of the extent of its own powers.”

Michael Boldin

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