The Bill of Rights … not lefts

The Fourth Branch of Government

The Bill of Rights … not lefts

Tom Udall

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

  

            Seldom does a supposed sovereign American get to experience the direct actions of his elected representative. I have, and the outcome is far from reassuring.

            When President Obama signed the Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument into law by presidential proclamation in May, the status of the federal lands ranch of my life’s investment was cast into an abyss of uncertainty. In the days since, every movement of my mind and body seems to be immersed in a quagmire of slowed motion and dread. The eight years of constant battle for any language referencing our property rights yielded nothing.

            Not a single request for protection on the nearly 600,000 acres of private, state, and federal lands in the footprint of the measure was granted to my ranching colleagues.

We close our eyes and shake our heads, but cannot come to grips that our presence was not a feature of the process. Our ability to operate will not be reserved to our devices, but to the public, and, most specifically, to the fourth branch of government … the environmental movement.

            “Restore Democracy to the American People”

            On June 3, a committee hearing took place in the Senate Hart Building to examine a constitutional amendment proposed by New Mexico’s senior senator, Tom Udall (D-NM). As defined by Udall, the amendment would serve to restore democracy to the American people. The testimony could not have been more divided.

            The Democrats, obsessed with the Koch brothers, reasoned that segments of the electorate cannot be assimilated into the voting booth without congressional latitude for regulatory measures. Udall himself wants more authority to set rules for raising and spending money in political campaigns.

Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer who testified, reasoned that “the notion that democracy would be advanced … saved … restored by limiting speech is nothing but a perversion of the English language”.

Likewise, the matter to the ranching community who has dealt up close with Udall leadership offers no reason to believe the discussion has anything to do with individual rights. It has everything to do with the accrual of unlimited, plenary power to restrict political speech, or, most specifically, political speech that differs from the environmental agenda.

This is not new for this senator.

In his S1805 precursor to the national monument designation by executive order, Tom Udall knew his legislation would not be passed by Congress. In a reelection year, the ability to move his bill legislatively was impossible. The only option was the telephone and the pen of the president.

The matter is classic Constitutional perversion and the stepwise expansion toward playing strictly by the numbers. Progressive democracy rules.

In fact, that is the substance and the mantra of the evolving progressive constitutional philosophy. What the document sets forth doesn’t matter. Votes trump the protections afforded by structure of the fundamental law of the land.

Bill of Rights … not lefts

If you are not struck with awe at the insight of the Founders, I am willing to wager on the party ticket of which you subscribe.

Through time and space, Patrick Henry offers his unique eloquence.

He argued that in order to craft a lasting document, a Bill of Rights was essential. “… all rights not expressly and unequivocally reserved to the people are impliedly and incidentally relinquished to rulers”, he warned speaking to his fellow Virginia legislators regarding the federal government.

“Every … right … not reserved to the people … is within the King’s (federal government) prerogative,” he continued. “… for if implication be allowed, you are ousted from those rights.”

He railed against the threats of an unchecked federal government.

“You let them loose; you do more … you depart from the genius of your country,” he said. “… government ought to suit their (the Framer’s and thus the peoples’) geniuses!”

The problem foreseen in the matter of controlled federal action continued to be debated in the legislative halls of every state. From Connecticut, Oliver Wolcott lectured that the pillars of the Constitution must remain steadfast inviolate.

“The Senate … are appointed by the states, and will secure the Rights of the several States,” he said. “The other branch of the Legislation … are to be elected by the people at large.”

“They (The House) will therefore be the guardians of the rights of the great body of the citizens.”

Ames, speaking from Massachusetts about the importance of state rights through their appointed senatorial representatives, elevated the importance of balanced representation.

 “… the State governments are essential parts of the (constitutional) system … the Senators represent the sovereignty of the states,” he lectured. “If they were chosen by the people at large who would they represent?”

“Not the legislatures of the states, but the people,” he continued. “This would obliterate the federal features of the Constitution.”

His point references the demise of vested state representation eventually lost in the 17^th Amendment when senatorial elections replaced state legislative appointments and made worse by the emergence of the aforementioned fourth branch of Government, the environmental movement and its accoutrements.

“What would become of State governments, and or whom would devolve the duty of defending them against the encroachment of a federal government?” he asked.

 “The State governments represent the wishes and feelings, and local interest of the people,” he reminded the assembled. “They (the States) are the safe guard and ornament of the Constitution … they will offer a shelter against the abuse of power, and will be the natural avenger of our violated Rights!”

The modern corollary

Ames, Henry, and Wolcott all foretold of the progression of power displacement and reapportionment to the federal government, the new King, if the Constitution and its structural integrity was mismanaged and or corrupted. In the modern version of the Ames warning, the sentence would appear more encompassing and specific.

“… the Senators must represent the sovereignty of the States in order to maintain protective barriers of those Rights reserved to the States,” he would have restated.

“If they were chosen by the people at large, who would they represent,” he would ask. “Not the legislatures of the States but the political special interests who provide their campaign refinancing … this would certainly obliterate the Constitution.”

And, so it has.

The structural integrity of the Constitution has been so corrupted there is no longer any regulatory mechanism in play. Senators like Tom Udall don’t have to address the fundamental matters that actually affect local citizenry nor do they have to worry about the drivers of local economies that contribute to the resolution of national debt. They are untouched by the market conditions that affect economies.

There is no foundational or moral authority that allows neither my elected senatorial representation nor my president to single me out and leave my life and my hard earned investments adrift and at full risk of failure. My future has been relegated to a public scoping process in which I have no advocate other than my sovereign being, and, based upon Senator Udall’s handling of my community’s custom and culture, we are not a part of his responsibility or stewardship.

We are highlighted, however, in the continuation of a warning from Patrick Henry.

“You (Congress) arm yourselves against the weak and defenceless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful,” he lashed. “Is not this conduct of unexampled absurdity?”

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “A reference to the parable of the lost sheep would be in order for my vested elected representation, but this process has defined a very clear message … I have none.”

Udall seems to have a problem with freedom in general, but he's really anti-freedom of speech. Witness his work with Harry Reid to limit debate in the Senate and now his attempt to limit election-year speech.