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Rediscovering States’ Rights
Democrats used to be the party of states’ rights. They used the principle to justify slavery and Jim Crow (they were always the party of racial division, except that back in the 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century, their preferred race was white people), but at least they believed in states’ rights.’
I believe in states’ rights. I believe that states are sovereign entities, and, as the 10th Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In my time in the Legislature, I fought two specific federal mandates. The first, the federal government used to require states to treat alcoholics and drug addicts as disabled for the purpose of social security payments. What that meant in practice is, if the state didn’t want to pay social security payments to drug addicts and alcoholics, the federal government would cut off federal payments for ALL social security recipients, including seniors and the “really” disabled, like folks in wheel chairs.
I thought the state should… Read More