Posted by Ray Haynes at 3:48 pm on Feb 06, 2017 Comments Off on 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