Senate bill 1474 By Campfield

AN ACT to amend the Tennessee Constitution, and Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 3,

relative to prohibiting infringement of the state of

Tennessee's constitutional right to nullification of

any federal legislation deemed unconstitutional by

the state.

WHEREAS, the state of Tennessee has a compelling interest as a sovereign state of the

United States of America in the proper implementation of protection and justice within its

borders, now, therefore,

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:

SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as "Tennessee Federal Usurpation Nullification

Reaffirmation Act."

SECTION 2. The general assembly declares:

(1) The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees and

reserves to the states and the people all powers not delegated to the federal government

elsewhere in the Constitution as they were publicly meant and understood at the time that the

amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, subject only to modification by duly

ratified subsequent amendments to the United States Constitution. The guarantee of

those powers is a matter of compact between the state and people of Tennessee and

the United States as of the time that Tennessee was admitted to statehood in 1796;

(2) In accordance with the compact between the state and people of Tennessee

and the United States when Tennessee was admitted to statehood, the Tenth

Amendment to the United States Constitution reserves to the state and people of

Tennessee that other than the enumerated powers expressly delegated to the United

States under Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, Congress and the

federal government will not exercise any purported additional control over or

commandeer rights belonging to the state of Tennessee or its people;

(32) The United States Constitution, ratified on June 21, 1788, established that the

sole and sovereign power to regulate the state business and affairs rested in state

legislatures and has always been a compelling state concern and central to state

sovereignty. Accordingly, the foregoing public meaning and understanding of Article 1

Section 8, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and the Tenth Amendment

of the United States Constitution is a matter of compact between the state and people of

Tennessee and the United States when Tennessee was admitted to statehood. Further,

the power to regulate commerce among the several states, as delegated to the Congress

in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution, aswas meant and understood at the time of the

founding, was meant to empower Congress only to regulate the buying and selling of

products tangible commodities made by others, associated finance and financial instruments, and navigation

and other carriage, across state jurisdictional lines from a seller outside a state to a buyer inside it. This power to regulate did not include the power to prohibit, or impose criminal penalties, and “commerce”

doesdid not include agriculture, manufacturing, mining, major crimes activities of those engaged in trade, possession, or land use. Nor does

itthe “necessary and proper clause”, Article I Section 8 clause 18, includeauthorize regulation of articles or activities that merely “substantially affect” commerce;

(43) At the time the United States Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, the

Commerce Clause was not meant or understood to authorize Congress or the federal

judiciary to regulate the state courts in the matter of state substantive law or state judicial

procedure. This meaning and understanding of Article 1 Section 8, the Establishment

Clause of the First Amendment, and the Tenth Amendment of the United States

Constitution, as they pertain to the validity of religious sectarian or foreign law as being

controlling or influential precedent have never been modified by any duly ratified

amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, the foregoing public

meaning and understanding of Article 1 Section 8 and the Tenth Amendment of the

United States Constitution is a matter of compact between the state and people of

Tennessee and the United States when Tennessee was admitted to statehood in 1796.

Further, Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution, the “necessary and proper

clause,” isdoes not a blank check that empowers the federal government to do anything it

deems necessary or properconvenient for its purposes. It is only to authorize instead a limitation of power under the common-law

doctrine of “principals and incidents,” which restricts the power of Congress to exerciselimited to

incidental powers, necessary and proper to make the efforts authorized in the other express powers, not to do whatever might achieve the purposes for which the powers might be exercised. There are two (2) main conditions required for something to be

incidental and therefore “necessary and proper.” The law or power exercised must be:

(54) The “general welfare clause,”In accordance with in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution

, ratified on June 21, 1788, the “general welfare clause,” does not empower the federal

government with the ability to do anything it deems gooddelegate a power. It is instead a general

restriction limiting the exerciseon taxing and spending in the exercise of the enumerated powers of Congress set forth in Article

I, Section 8, and elsewhere in of the Constitution of the United States, requiring that Congress only enact

lawsdo so only in ways which serve all citizens well and equally, and do not favor or disfavor any state, region, or faction. When James Madison was asked if this

clause was a grant of power, he replied “If not only the means but the objects are

unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once.” Thus,

this clause is a limitation on the power of the federal government to act in the welfare of

all when passing laws in pursuance of the powers delegated to the United States.

Likewise, the Commerce Clause was not meant or understood to authorize Congress or

the federal judiciary to establish religious sectarian or foreign statutes or case law as

controlling or influential precedent. Accordingly, the foregoing public meaning and

understanding of Article 1 Section 8, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

and the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is a matter of compact

between the state and people of Tennessee and the United States when Tennessee

was admitted to statehood;

(65) The general assembly acknowledges that the “Commerce Clause”, the

“General Welfare Clause”, and the “Necessary and Proper Clause" of the United States

Constitution were amended, and made more specific and limiting at the people's

insistence through the creation of the Bill of Rights, i.e. the 2nd Amendment, the 9th

Amendment and the10th Amendment. All amendments within the Bill of Rights were for

the purpose of further restrictingclarifying the restrictions on federal powers, vesting or retaining the ultimate power

and control of the states by the people within the states. Therefore, we specifically reject

and deny any federal claim of expanded or additional authority which the federal

government may from time to time attempt to exert, exercise, or enforce under these

clauses. Further, the people of the state of Tennessee are aware that the federal

government has amended and altered the spirit and the meaningusurped authority under the alleged authority of the Commerce

Clause, all without proper legislative authority throughconstitutional amendment. Therefore, we reject

and deny this unauthorized and excessive abuse of power which has primarily acted as

a detriment to states’ rights andinfringed individual rights;

(76) In accordance with the U.S.United States Constitution, Congress and the federal

government is denied the power to establish laws within the state which are repugnant

and obtrusive to the U.S. Constitution, the state Constitution, state law, and the citizens

of the state. The federal government is restrained and confined in authority by the

eighteen (18) items as set forth in Article I, Section 8 and elsewhere inof the United States Constitution;

(8) Congress and the federal government are denied the power to bind the states

under foreign statutes or case law other than those provisions duly ratified by the

Congress as a treaty, so long as the treaty does not violate the state or United States

Constitution.

(9) Further, no authority has ever been given to the legislative branch, the

executive branch, or the judicial branch, of the federal government, to preempt state

legislation;

(107) This act shall serve as a notice and demand to the federal government to

cease and desist any and all activities outside the scope of their constitutionally-

designated powers;

(11) Under the Tenth Amendment, the people and the state of Tennessee retain

their exclusive power to regulate the state of Tennessee, subject only to the Fourteenth

Amendment's guarantee, that the people and state of Tennessee shall exercise such

sovereign power in accordance with each citizen’s lawful privileges or immunities, and in

compliance with the requirements of due process and equal protection of the law; and

(127) Whereas the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution secures

and reserves to the people of Tennessee, as against the federal government, their

natural rights to life, liberty, and property as entailed by the traditional Anglo-American

conception of ordered liberty and as secured by state law, including, but not limited to,

their rights as they were understood and secured by the law at the time that the

amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, as well as their rights as they were

understood and secured by the law in the state of Tennessee at the time the Tennessee

constitution was adopted, the people and state hereby proclaim that the guarantee of

those rights is a matter of compact between the state and the people of Tennessee and

the United States as of the time that Tennessee was admitted to statehood.

1. 
   A "Federal Action Review Commission", as a kind of grand jury, shall be established, to meet frequently with rotating membership drawn from a pool of constitutionally knowledgeable persons, excluding public employees, contractors, or pensioners, active lawyers, or current members, selected at random by a sortition process. Such commission shall be empowered to review the constitutionality of current or proposed federal legislation, regulations, practices, rules, decisions or other actions, and if it finds such actions to be unconstitutional, to issue an edict, with the force of law, requiring that no state or local officials, employees, or contractors cooperate in the enforcement of such usurpation, and urging state citizens to also refuse to cooperate.
   
2. 
   The Commission shall consist of 23 members, who shall serve for staggered terms of 6 months each, except initially. The selection pool shall be filled each year with at least three nominees from each of the local grand juries throughout the State. The Commission shall elect its foreperson, adopt rules of procedure, and meet for at least one hour once a week, with a quorum of 16, and a vote of 12 required to issue a report. It may only report findings of unconstitutionality. It shall base its findings on a presumption of nonauthority, and require strict proof of constitutionality from logical and textual analysis and historical evidence, not court precedent. It shall be open to direct complaints of the unconstitutionality of federal actions from any citizen, subject only to orderly scheduling which it shall prescribe. It shall have the power to subpoena witnesses, and its deliberations shall be secret, except that it may disclose anything in its reports. It may authorize criminal prosecution by issuing an indictment to any person, not necessarily a lawyer, upon a finding that the court cited in the indictment has jurisdiction and that evidence of guilt is sufficient for trial.
   
3. 
   State and local officials, employees, and contractors shall be duly notified in writing of such edicts within ten days and shall have twenty days to comply or be subject to termination after one written warning and a second failure to refuse to cooperate with federal officials and agents. No official, employee, or contractor shall be penalized for compliance with an edict of the Commission.
   
4. 
   A state fund shall be established to pay for private legal counsel and provide financial support of state citizens and agents who refuse to cooperate with unconstitutional federal actions, with the intention to obtain judicial decisions that support the unconstitutionality of the federal actions, and hold the resisting citizen harmless.
   

(2) Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 3, Chapter 1, Part 1, is amended by

adding the following new sections thereto:

3-1-123.
(a) The general assembly shall appoint a commission of

recommendation, consisting of ten (10) members, five (5) members from the

senate to be appointed by the speaker of the senate and five (5) members from

the house of representatives to be appointed by the speaker of the house of

representatives, which shall be charged to recommend and propose for a vote by

a constitutional majority to nullify in its entirety a specific federal law or regulation

which is deemed to be outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people

to the federal government in the United States Constitution, or at odds with the

Tennessee Constitution.

(b) The members of the commission shall be appointed for terms

concurrent with the general assembly from which they are appointed. In the

event a vacancy occurs, the appropriate speaker shall appoint a member to fill

the vacancy for the unexpired term.

(c) The commission shall respond with its recommendations within thirty

(30) days of receiving such federal legislation for consideration. The commission

of recommendation shall have the power to reach back and take up or review

any and all existing federal statutes, mandates, and executive orders for the

purpose of determining the constitutionality thereof, and such commission may

recommend existing federal statutes, mandates, and executive orders put in

place prior to the passage of this act for nullification.

(d) Upon recommendation for nullification, the general assembly shall

vote to nullify following such recommendation. The appropriate documentation

reflecting the vote shall be documented in legislative journals of the house and

senate. In the event the general assembly votes by a constitutional majority to

nullify any federal statute, mandate, or executive order on the grounds of

constitutionality, the state nor its citizens shall recognize or be obligated to live

under such statute, mandate, or executive order.

3-1-124. It shall be the duty of the general assembly to adopt and enact any and

all measures that may become necessary to prevent the wrongful enforcement of any

federal laws or regulations duly nullified within the boundaries and limits of this state.

The Secretary of State shall provide for the initial appointment of the members of the Commission, and disburse compensation in accordance with prevailing rates for grand jurors, from the State Treasury, and a fund of $1 million shall be initially authorized to provide for expenses and for a civil defense fund for private citizens acting on findings of the Commission.

President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker and Clerk of the United States House

of Representatives, and each member of the States’ Congressional delegation, with the request that

this Act be officially entered into the Congressional Record.

SECTION 5. For the purposes of making appointments to the committee of

recommendationcommission this act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.