Resolution Passes Claiming Oklahoma's Sovereignty
04/16/09
This has now passed and was signed by the Governor of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma City
- State lawmakers have passed a resolution that claims the state's sovereignty
under the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It comes a day after Texas
made headlines for doing the same thing.
House Joint Resolution 1003 was authored by Republican Representative
Charles Key of Oklahoma City
and was championed in the Senate by Republican Senator Randy Brogdon of Owasso
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," the legislation reads.
The 10th Amendment states that "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."
The resolution passed in the Senate by a vote of 29 to 18. It previously
passed in the House in February by a vote of 83 to 13.
"Today,
thousands of regular citizens showed up at this state Capitol to say they want
the federal government to follow the United States Constitution," said
Key. "
Oklahoma
became the first state to pass 10th Amendment legislation last year. But, the
House resolution hit a road block in the state Senate when the legislature
adjourned with no action being taken.
"We
now have an opportunity to be the first state to have it signed it into law,"
Key added. "Once
the resolution is on the governor’s desk, I hope he will quickly sign House
Joint Resolution 1003 into law. I also hope that when it is distributed
to President Barack Obama and other elected officials
of the federal government that they will recall the oaths to the United States
Constitution that they all took and take heed.”