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Originally Posted by Platapus
I am not familiar with any legislation that would allow 34 states (perhaps you meant 38) to "Force the Federal Government" to do anything. I believe that would be called an Insurrection and is addressed in Article 1 section 8.
Article 1 Section 10 limits the rights of states to form alliances with other states without the approval of the Congress so I am not sure any states can combine efforts and "force" the federal government.
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You are correct that three-fourths of the states are required to ratify. Two thirds are needed to propose an amendment for ratification.
I'm not sure why you think that this effort would classify as an insurrection though. As long as it goes through the legal amendment process, the states are excercising clearly defined powers. You're right that states can't
force the federal government to do anything, but creating an amendment intended to do so is perfectly legal, I think.
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Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo
That means it has no more power to collect federal taxes
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That's not entirely correct. There are a number of federal taxes that are not uniformly applied across all states as defined in article 1 section 8, but they do have the power to tax and tariff.
I do like the spirit of this kind of legislation, CH. However I'm not terribly excited just yet. For one thing, I didn't see any proposed amendments in that list you provided, although I didn't check every link.
For another, a lot of them are just resolutions, not bills. The example you provide from Arizona, HCR 2024, is just a resolution that, the senate permitting, copies of the resolution will be made available to some people in Washington. It's the legislative equivalent of a post-it note on the fridge. With a lot of states behind it, it may have an effect, but nothing is set in stone.
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As for the Judiciary being the arbiter - realize that any judicial decision made would then also be at the mercy of the 34 states - as they override Federal law at that point since they can almost ammend the constitution as necessary to shut down the federal judiciary.
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Well I hope they don't do that. We need a judiciary branch, just not one that interprets the constitution so broadly, so often, imo.
All that being said, this is still really good news. Nice find
