Beware fellow citizens. The Federal Government may be about to unconstitutionally meddle in our lives again. Articles in the April 28 issues of The Leader and the Star Gazette indicated our Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has introduced legislation in the Senate, known as the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Act that is to set national standards for states in issuing driver’s licenses.
How many times do we have to go through this? The U.S. Constitution clearly provides that the Federal Government only has those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution.
Unless I can’t read or maybe the Feds are operating under a different Constitution, Congress has no jurisdiction over the issuance of driver’s licenses. Nor, as a matter of fact do they have jurisdiction of speed limits or DWI or anything related to education but they have managed to avoid the Constitutional limits to their powers.
In the 1970’s we experienced a fuel crisis so brilliant congressman introduced legislation to create a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour and it passed.
Shortly thereafter a group of states sued to have that law declared unconstitutional as congress did not have jurisdiction over speed limits and the Supreme Court agreed with those states and set the law aside.
Soon after that a federal agency announced to all states that they would either adopt the 55 speed limit or lose federal highway aid. Several states again brought suit to stop the practice as it was, in effect giving the feds unconstitutional jurisdiction by allowing them to mandate in an area for which the Constitution did not give them power. Somehow the Supreme Court justices either lost their ability to think and read or maybe have a different copy of the Constitution than most of us.
Their ruling was that Feds were not unconstitutionally mandating the speed limits because each state now had the choice of deciding their own speed limits and foregoing the federal highway aid or let the Feds mandate the speed limits and receive the money.
What is the difference between “Greenmail” and “Blackmail?” It seems like the Supreme Court’s ruling was a bit convoluted to make matters worse that ruling opened the floodgates and “Greenmail” has become the standard approach for about anything the federal government or its agencies decided they want.
Where did the .08 blood alcohol content for driving while intoxicated come from or the 21 drinking age or “No Child Left Behind?”
Within the recent past there was an article in both of the aforementioned news papers reporting the feds are working on a new National Education Law, although they have no Constitutional power over education, and it will undoubtedly be followed by more “Greenmail.”
There are many more instances of the feds using the “Greenmail” approach to force the states to do what they want. Quite possibly this tactic plus a lot of other questionable tactics of the President, Congress and the scores of federal agencies has led to our current economic and social melt down.
Robert Dugo
Bath
