Posted by SLS on March 22, 2010, at 23:43:52 [reposted on March 23, 2010, at 1:06:01 | original URL]
In reply to Re: explain to me why its a bummer i havent got a clue » manic666, posted by conundrum on March 22, 2010, at 22:26:26
> In the United States we have a Bill of Rights to our constitution which provides certain rights to the states in the 10th amendment.
I am not a student of the law, but this is the wording of the 10th amendment:
"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."
There is no provisioning of specific rights to the states in this amendment. I believe that it was the Federalists who helped to craft its wording so that it be ambiguous as to what powers were "delegated" to the federal government. They fought, and one, to exclude the word "expressly" so as to allow great latitude in the definition of federal powers. The 10th amendment has actually allowed for the expansion of the roles of the federal government based upon the purposeful ambiguity. The wording serves to suggest that the federal government has implied powers. For the most part, the US Supreme Court has affirmed that implied powers exist, and that they need not be expressly detailed in the US Constitution. However, the court does, at times, deem some laws unconstitutional so as to limit the reach of implied powers.
It will be interesting to see how long is the reach that the US Supreme Court allows the federal government in its implementation of the health care bill should it ultimately become law.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:940515
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20090821/msgs/940525.html