🚀 go-pugleaf

Re: Helms on Tobacco Czar Clinton, Stephen Worley Anderson writes:

> I can't remember a case in which the federal courts respected [the 
> Tenth Amendment] when deciding on an issue of expansion of federal powers.

I heard this from a lawyer I know, but I don't remember reading it personally 
at the time:

Some time in the last year or two, President Sworn-to-uphold-the-Second-and-
Tenth-Amendments-Both tried to get gun possession illegalized within 100 
feet of school zones (enforceable by the Bureau of Sworn-to-Violate-Alcohol-
Toboacco-and-Firearms-Rights).  The Supreme Can't-Help-Doing-Something-
Right-Once-in-a-While struck down the move as unconstitutional,
with Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the majority opinion, citing the 
Tenth.  President Who-Asked-You-in-the-First-Place vowed to get the measure
implemented anyway.  The case went by the name of _Lopez_.  I don't know its 
current status.

What a second lawyer remarked, when I told him what the first lawyer 
said above, is that it's a wonder the action didn't get justified by 
the interstate commerce clause, the way the whole Civil Rights Act of
'64 was, for example.

Also, a couple weeks ago I saw the Tenth cited in _USA_Weekend_.  
That publication is not exactly _The_Congressional_Record_ in 
legal significance, but maybe that's okay.  I was glad to see somebody 
quoting the amendment in a broad-based national 'zine.  (The article was 
about governors upset with interference from Washington.)  

I don't mind making people so tired of hearing me say "Tenth Amendment, 
Tenth Amendment, Tenth Amendment," that they actually look the thing up.
When ten media panelists (including the New York Times) interviewed
me Aug. 20, one of them got so tired of hearing me say it that she drew 
a cartoon, to spoof me, of the U.S. flag with the words "10th Amendment"
scrawled over it.  (She didn't show it to me, it was spied by a buddy
of mine.)  Yes, ma'am!--and don't forget "the supreme law of the land" 
while you're at it!

Heck, I met Ralph McKinney a couple weeks ago, and he didn't know what 
the Tenth was.  Ralph McKinney was a potential opponent of mine, whom 
Harvey Gantt beat in the primary.


Ray Ubinger,
1996 Libertarian Party of North Carolina Candidate for U.S. Senate
rcu@acpub.duke.edu
"Your Life, Your Way"