The day after the House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform, Republican attorneys general in twelve states declared that they would file lawsuits as soon as the bill was signed into law by President Obama. Bill McCollum, Florida’s attorney general who is leading the effort, said the bill “violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state’s sovereignty.”

Virginia has already passed a law against government mandates to buy health insurance. Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Louisiana are ready to go to court to fight for their state’s rights. David Rivkin Jr., a lawyer advising Florida, declared, “This really goes to the heart of the Constitutional architecture that the framers have devised between the government and its citizens.” He argued that the health care bill would represent “a qualitatively unprecedented expansion of federal authority at the expense of the states.” He added, “The Constitution does matter.” These words – being used in 2010 – sound like John C. Calhoun and the States’ Rights orators of the pre Civil War era.

This rapid adverse reaction by the attorneys general to the Health Care Reform bill is the latest response of state law makers fighting federal authority. On March 12, Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota, signed a bill into law, declaring that the federal regulation of firearms is invalid if a weapon is made and used in South Dakota. On March 11, Governor Dave Freudenthal had signed a similar bill for Wyoming. On the same day, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives approved a resolution that Oklahomans should be able to vote on a state constitutional amendment to opt out of the federal health care reform. Utah passed two bills on the final day of their legislative session in early March. One said that Congress and the federal government could not carry out health reform in Utah without approval of the state legislature. The second bill declared state authority to take federal lands under the eminent domain process. A separate resolution declared “the inviolable sovereignty of the State of Utah under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Groups have formed to support states’ rights in different parts of the country. They are usually linked to the conservative movement and in some cases to the Tea Parties as well. Chris Herrod, a Republican State Representative from Provo Utah, is the leader of the 30 member Patrick Henry Caucus, formed in 2009. He asked in the Utah legislature, “Who is the sovereign, the state or the federal government?” Gary Harbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association spoke about the “firearms freedoms” laws passed in South Dakota and Wyoming. “There’s a tsunami of interest in states’ rights and resistance to an overbearing federal government; that’s what all these measures indicate.”

The Ludwig von Mises Institute, a nonprofit group in Auburn, Alabama, researches “the scholarship of liberty.” Thomas Woods Jr, a senior fellow there, has written in depth on states’ rights and nullification. He said, “Everything we’ve tried to keep the federal government confined to rational limits has been a failure, an utter, unrelenting failure – so why not try something new?” A fourth group, the Tenth Amendment center, a research and advocacy group based in Los Angeles, says that states’ rights issues are also arising in liberal states. They cite Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin considering bills that would authorize or require governors to recall or take control of National Guard troops. They argue that the federal calls to active duty have exceeded their authority.

Constitutional scholars cite Article VI as the basis for federal authority and centuries of rulings by the Supreme Court that upheld that authority. In the 20th Century, school desegregation and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were enormous victories for federal authority over states’ rights. From Article VI exactly as written, “This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land and the judges in every State shall be bound thereof, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Professor Ruthann Robson, who teaches constitutional law at City University of New York School of Law, summed up: “Article 6 says that federal law is supreme and that if there’s a conflict, federal law prevails. It’s pretty difficult to imagine a way in which a state could prevail on many of these.”

It’s also of value to review the Tenth Amendment since it is the

signature constitutional reference of

states’ rights advocates. It was the last of the first ten amendments known as The Bill of Rights, ratified, December 15, l791. Passed three years after the Constitution was framed, it was important to the founders that the central government be balanced by the rights of the 13 newly formed states. They wanted to insure that their liberties would never be infringed upon as they had been by King George III. Here it is verbatim: “Amendment X: 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.” Every word, phrase, and punctuation mark has been analyzed and used in arguments in the courts over the centuries to support or restrict states’ rights in regard to federal authority. No doubt, the Tenth Amendment will be cited by the attorneys general in the Health Care cases they argue in the courts in the months and years ahead.

Joyce S. Anderson is the author of “Courage in High Heels,” “Flaw in the Tapestry,” “If Winter Comes” and “The Mermaids Singing.” She can be reached at JSAWrite@aol.com.