83R6748 BPG-D
By: Sanford, Krause, Miller of Fort Bend, H.C.R. No. 63
Bonnen of Brazoria, Leach, et al.
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States reads as follows: "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";
and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of
federal power as being that specifically granted by the
Constitution of the United States and no more; and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of
the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union
of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal
government may not usurp; and
WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the constitution says,
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people";
and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New
York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Printz v. United
States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), that Congress may not simply
commandeer the legislative, executive, and regulatory processes of
the states, and that to do so is a violation of the Tenth Amendment;
and
WHEREAS, One of our nation's founders and author of the
Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, emphasized that the
states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather
the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral
whole"; and
WHEREAS, One of the authors of the Federalist Papers,
Alexander Hamilton, expressed his hope that "the people will always
take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the
general and the state governments" and that "this balance between
the national and state governments forms a double security to the
people"; and
WHEREAS, The Second Amendment to the United States
Constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms;
and
WHEREAS, Recently, the president announced a sweeping array
of gun control measures that would infringe on the Second Amendment
rights of citizens; members of Congress have also proposed
draconian gun control legislation, including the restoration of a
ban on "assault weapons," which is a term that remains undefined;
and
WHEREAS, Such encroachments by the federal government may
result in a commandeering of the states' legislative, executive,
and regulatory processes; they undermine the spirit of the
federalist system created by our nation's founders and are in
violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 83rd Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby assert its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States and beseech the federal
government to immediately cease and desist from the promulgation of
mandates that infringe on the Second Amendment right to keep and
bear arms or that are otherwise beyond the scope of its
constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record
as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.