Texas 2013 - 83rd Regular

Texas House Bill HCR63 Compare Versions

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1	1	83R6748 BPG-D
2	2	By: Sanford, Krause, Miller of Fort Bend, H.C.R. No. 63
3	3	Bonnen of Brazoria, Leach, et al.
4	4
5	5
6	6	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
7	7	WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
8	8	United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the
9	9	United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
10	10	States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people";
11	11	and
12	12	WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of
13	13	federal power as being that specifically granted by the
14	14	Constitution of the United States and no more; and
15	15	WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of
16	16	the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union
17	17	of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal
18	18	government may not usurp; and
19	19	WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the constitution says,
20	20	"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
21	21	Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that
22	22	"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
23	23	be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people";
24	24	and
25	25	WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New
26	26	York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Printz v. United
27	27	States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), that Congress may not simply
28	28	commandeer the legislative, executive, and regulatory processes of
29	29	the states, and that to do so is a violation of the Tenth Amendment;
30	30	and
31	31	WHEREAS, One of our nation's founders and author of the
32	32	Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, emphasized that the
33	33	states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather
34	34	the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral
35	35	whole"; and
36	36	WHEREAS, One of the authors of the Federalist Papers,
37	37	Alexander Hamilton, expressed his hope that "the people will always
38	38	take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the
39	39	general and the state governments" and that "this balance between
40	40	the national and state governments forms a double security to the
41	41	people"; and
42	42	WHEREAS, The Second Amendment to the United States
43	43	Constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms;
44	44	and
45	45	WHEREAS, Recently, the president announced a sweeping array
46	46	of gun control measures that would infringe on the Second Amendment
47	47	rights of citizens; members of Congress have also proposed
48	48	draconian gun control legislation, including the restoration of a
49	49	ban on "assault weapons," which is a term that remains undefined;
50	50	and
51	51	WHEREAS, Such encroachments by the federal government may
52	52	result in a commandeering of the states' legislative, executive,
53	53	and regulatory processes; they undermine the spirit of the
54	54	federalist system created by our nation's founders and are in
55	55	violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
56	56	States; now, therefore, be it
57	57	RESOLVED, That the 83rd Legislature of the State of Texas
58	58	hereby assert its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the
59	59	Constitution of the United States and beseech the federal
60	60	government to immediately cease and desist from the promulgation of
61	61	mandates that infringe on the Second Amendment right to keep and
62	62	bear arms or that are otherwise beyond the scope of its
63	63	constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further
64	64	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
65	65	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
66	66	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
67	67	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
68	68	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
69	69	this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record
70	70	as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.