2023 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 21
BY SENATOR CATHEY AND REPRESENTATI VE GAROFALO
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To affirm the sovereign right of Louisiana to nullify unconstitutional acts of the federal
government.
WHEREAS, Article I of the Constitution of Louisiana establishes a "Declaration of
Rights"; and
WHEREAS, Section 1 of Article I declares in pertinent part that "All government,
of right, originates with the people, is founded on their will alone, and is instituted to protect
the rights of the individual and for the good of the whole"; and
WHEREAS, Section 1 of Article I further provides that "The rights enumerated in
this Article are inalienable by the state and shall be preserved inviolate by the state"; and
WHEREAS, Section 2 of Article I declares that "No person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, except by due process of law"; and
WHEREAS, when "We the People" ordained and established the Constitution of the
United States of America, the people and states granted only specific, limited powers to the
federal government, enumerated in Section 8 of Article I; and
WHEREAS, Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution of the United States,
respectively, exclusively vest legislative, executive, and judicial powers to the corresponding
branches of government; and
WHEREAS, this horizontal separation of powers reflects the understanding the
founding fathers derived from both scripture and experience that sinful man could not be
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trusted to always be virtuous and public-minded; and
WHEREAS, the founding fathers did not want undue power to be combined in any
branch of government where, if left unchecked, it could become tyrannical; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States does not permit Congress to
delegate or confer any lawmaking power to any other branch of government; and
WHEREAS, no other person, agency, or department of any other branch of the
federal government has any lawmaking power under the Constitution of the United States;
and
WHEREAS, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution of the United States establishes
the only process by which a bill becomes a law; and
WHEREAS, this process requires passage by both houses of Congress followed by
either presidential approval or congressional override of presidential veto; and
WHEREAS, any action by the executive or judicial branches that purports to enact
law or that is treated as such is a usurpation of power; and
WHEREAS, federal court opinions and executive orders are often erroneously
interpreted as law or to have amended the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, the principle of separation of powers is so innately representative of a
republican form of government that it is upheld and reinforced in the Constitution of
Louisiana through the establishment of three branches of state government; and
WHEREAS, when creating a federal government through ratification of the
Constitution of the United States, the people and the states also designed a vertical
separation of powers between the superior sovereign states and the inferior federal
government; and
WHEREAS, a vertical separation of powers is explicitly articulated in Article I,
Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States, granting to the federal government only
limited, enumerated, lawmaking powers; and
WHEREAS, this vertical separation of powers is also incorporated into the Bill of
Rights; and
WHEREAS, the First Amendment specifically denies Congress lawmaking power
within certain listed fields; and
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WHEREAS, the Ninth Amendment specifically prohibits the federal government
from interfering with rights not expressly enumerated in the Constitution of the United
States; and
WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment, denies the federal government powers not
delegated to it in the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, this vertical separation of powers is generally well known by the people
and the states and was known and respected by the federal government for over one hundred
years of our nation's history; and
WHEREAS, this principle has become increasingly disregarded in recent decades,
as if the federal government were supreme in all areas and unlimited in its jurisdiction; and
WHEREAS, whether this shift was intentional or accidental, active or passive, it
nevertheless finds no support in the Constitution of the United States of America, the laws
of the United States, or the constitutions of any of the sovereign states and is an illegal
usurpation of power and the unalienable rights of the people; and
WHEREAS, any federal action that violates either the horizontal or vertical
separation of powers is void as the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of
the land; and
WHEREAS, the landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison declared that
"a law repugnant to the Constitution is void"; and
WHEREAS, an act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
cannot become a law; and
WHEREAS, the provisions of the Constitution of the United States supersede all
other laws; and
WHEREAS, in the 1879 decision, Ex parte Siebold, the Supreme Court ruled that
"An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offence created by it is not a crime.
A conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal
cause of imprisonment"; and
WHEREAS, in Norton v. Shelby County the Supreme Court stated that "An
unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no
protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had
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never been passed"; and
WHEREAS, in Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court further opined that "Where
rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rulemaking or legislation
which would abrogate them"; and
WHEREAS, as Thomas Jefferson explained in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798,
"whensoever the General government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
unauthoritative, void, and of no force."; and
WHEREAS, Jefferson further added "but where powers are assumed which have not
been delegated a nullification of the act is a rightful remedy: that every state has a natural
right, in cases not within the compact to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of
power by others within their limits"; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States binds federal lawmakers by oath
to support the constitution, and when they fail to do so, the rightful remedy for states is to
nullify their usurpations and to declare their acts void; and
WHEREAS, every constitutional officeholder must know and understand these
important constitutional limitations of power and individually determine how best to defend
the rights of the people and fulfill his or her oath of office; and
WHEREAS, President Andrew Jackson illustrated commitment to this principle in
1832 through his veto of a bill to recharter the Bank of the United States; and
WHEREAS, President Jackson argued that the principle of separation of powers
meant that no branch of government could claim the exclusive right to settle constitutional
differences of opinion because each public officer swears to uphold the constitution as he
understands it, not as it is understood by others; and
WHEREAS, President Jackson's veto illustrated the requirement that every
officeholder must reach an independent judgment about the jurisdictional scope of the
federal government and act consistently upon those judgments; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States assures the people and the states
that their respective rights and powers will be respected by the federal government; and
WHEREAS, these sacred rights shall not be infringed upon by any action of the
federal government purporting to wield any undue authority.
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THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
affirm the sovereign right of Louisiana to nullify unconstitutional acts of the federal
government.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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