First Regular Session
             Sixty-seventh General Assembly
                    STATE OF COLORADO
                                                 INTRODUCED
                                                           
                                                           
 LLS NO. M09-1094.01 Troy Bratton                 SJM09-011
                   SENATE SPONSORSHIP
 Lundberg,  Cadman, Kopp, Scheffel
 
                    HOUSE SPONSORSHIP
 Lambert, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Senate Committees
 House Committees.
 
 
 State, Veterans & Military Affairs
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                   SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 09-011 
       Memorializing Congress concerning a claim of sovereignty
            under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
            United States over certain powers, serving notice to
            the federal government to cease and desist certain
            mandates, and providing that certain federal
            legislation be prohibited or repealed.
       
       
            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 scope of power defined by the Tenth
       Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states
       specifically to be an agent of the states; and
       
            WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated
       as agents of the federal government; and
       
            WHEREAS, Many federal laws are directly in violation of the
       Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; 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 of article IV of the United States
       Constitution says, in part, "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, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not
       simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states;
       and
       
            WHEREAS, A number of proposals from previous administrations
       and some now pending from the present administration and from
       Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now,
       therefore,
       
            Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Sixty-seventh General Assembly
       of the State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein:
       
            (1)  That the State of Colorado hereby claims sovereignty under
       the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all
       powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government
       by the Constitution of the United States.
       
            (2)  That this memorial serves as notice and demand to the federal
       government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately,
       mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated
       powers.
       
            (3)  That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to
       comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires
       states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.
       
            Be It Further Resolved, That copies of this Joint Memorial be
       transmitted to the President of the United States, the President of the
       United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of
       Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate
       of each state's legislature, and each member of Colorado's congressional
       delegation.