Rep. Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) and 17 co-sponsors introduced Assembly Bill 482 (AB482) on Aug. 24.

Yawn. It should read "Rep. Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) and 17 co-sponsors other Democrats introduced Assembly Bill 482 (AB482) on Aug. 24.

I think this bill will go nowhere.

I'd say it's likely that this is a ploy by WI Dems to get some advantage in some WI districts for the midterms.

Even if they elected more Dems to WI legislature and passed it, the courts would inevitably rule that they are not allowed to nullify federal law with their state law.

Wisconsin Moves to Be First State Ever to Nullify Federal Cannabis Prohibition Through Legislation

It does not, nor can it. It is in direct conflict with Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

Rep. Melissa Sargent and her 17 co-sponsors should be arrested on charges for seditious conspiracy against the United States.

I'd say it's likely that this is a ploy by WI Dems to get some advantage in some WI districts for the midterms.

I expect this to be followed by a push for $15 minimum wage and forgiveness of all college loans. And a chicken in every pot.

Even if they elected more Dems to WI legislature and passed it, the courts would inevitably rule that they are not allowed to nullify federal law with their state law.

Separation of powers. Courts have zero authority to order legislatures to pass or not pass any laws they wish. Courts can declare laws unconstitutional, but cannot tell legislatures what laws can or cannot be on the books.

Beyond that, you missed a very important point in the article, which claims that 99% of marijuana cases are handled at the state level, not the fed level. If WI eliminates states penalties (for amounts under 2 ounces) then the only cases that can be prosecuted must be done in a fed court and cannot be done in state court. Unless the feds want to spend it's own money sending in it's own agents to battle marijuana, which the article says the DEA cannot afford to do, then it should mean that 99% of marijuana cases in WI are no longer prosecuted.

And that is not a violation of the Constitution.

Beyond that, you missed a very important point in the article, which claims that 99% of marijuana cases are handled at the state level, not the fed level. If WI eliminates states penalties (for amounts under 2 ounces) then the only cases that can be prosecuted must be done in a fed court and cannot be done in state court. Unless the feds want to spend it's own money sending in it's own agents to battle marijuana, which the article says the DEA cannot afford to do, then it should mean that 99% of marijuana cases in WI are no longer prosecuted.

True enough. But they can't immunize growers or businesses doing business with them (like banks).

So much of the law would get struck down if challenged by the feds. Given Sessions' long history as a drug warrior, you should expect him to act.

I expect this to be followed by a push for $15 minimum wage and forgiveness of all college loans. And a chicken in every pot.

WI Dems? They blew past those milestones years ago.

No way this makes it past Walker's veto even if they did somehow pass it.

So much of the law would get struck down if challenged by the feds.

What part? The courts can't strike down a law that removes other laws from the books.

Unless the feds want to spend it's own money sending in it's own agents to battle marijuana,

The feds would only go after the growers, dealers and traffickers anyways. And how many "dispensaries" would the feds need to shut down before people get the message?

What part? The courts can't strike down a law that removes other laws from the books.

Well, it won't pass until at least 2019 anyway. That's assuming the Dems can take the WI House and Senate and override Walker's veto as well.

So it is a moot point.

And how many "dispensaries" would the feds need to shut down before people get the message?

Apparently, more than they've been able to shut down in the last 45 years or so.

Apparently, more than they've been able to shut down in the last 45 years or so.

Able to or willing to?

Where do you get 45 years? "The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club was the first public marijuana dispensary in the United States. It first opened in 1992."

Whatever message the feds have been trying to deliver about marijuana has not been received after some 45 years of fighting the WoD. So what does one expect to change in the next 5-10 years?

whitey favors Duarte's draconian methods to "end" the WOD. He'd be fine with shooting potheads on sight. Oh - and as he has stated many times, he wants to see state legislators charged with " seditious conspiracy against the United States" for legalizing marijuana in their respective states.

How does one reason with a rabid zealot like him?

I expect this to be followed by a push for $15 minimum wage and forgiveness of all college loans.

I wonder, how much did or do you per hour? How much did you pay for college.

And I was glad to have it.

whitey favors Duarte's draconian methods to "end" the WOD.

Gives me a chubbie.

The war on marijuana has been going on since Nixen, if I'm not mistaken.

The war on marijuana? I thought you said the war on dispensaries.

"So what does one expect to change in the next 5-10 years?"

With all this legalization and decriminalization going on, I expect a continued increase in the use of marijuana -- until someone starts enforcing existing law.

paid the equivalent of $5 per hour.

What it was in today's dollars? Did you pay 50K per college year?

paid the equivalent of $5 per hour.

What it was in today's dollars? Did you pay 50K per college year?

How did you study while working two jobs?

With all this legalization and decriminalization going on, I expect a continued increase in the use of marijuana

I bet the same thing happened with alcohol when prohibition ended and then it tapered off.

It astounds me how you zealots and anti-pot cultists seemingly have learned nothing from that 13-year fiasco.

The entire alcohol industry was controlled not by licensed, regulated businesses, but by violent criminals willing to assume the risks of trafficking an illegal product in exchange for obscenely high profits -- profits inflated by alcohol's very illegality.

Rather than reducing crime, alcohol Prohibition made pretty much everybody criminals, creating an unheard-of level of gang violence and police corruption.

See any parallels?

I bet the same thing happened with alcohol when prohibition ended and then it tapered off.

Prohibition was totally different. Alcohol use was decreasing before Prohibition. During Prohibition it increased. There were more speakeasies during Prohibition that there were bars before Prohibition.

Rather than reducing crime, alcohol Prohibition made pretty much everybody criminals, creating an unheard-of level of gang violence and police corruption

And when we legalized alcohol, gang violence went away as did police corruption.

How did you study while working two jobs?

It was a work study program. Work 3 months. Go to school 3 months.

Madison, WI – Yet another state is moving towards legalizing cannabis for medical and recreational use. However, Wisconsin is going about it in a most Constitutional way. The state of Wisconsin introduced a bill last week that would effectively nullify the federal prohibition of marijuana in the state.

There is no such thing as a State law that effectively nullifies a Federal law. No matter how many times it is repeated, it continues to be bullshit.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-15_d1oe.pdf

(Slip Opinion)

OCTOBER TERM, 2014 Syllabus

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

ARMSTRONG ET AL. v. EXCEPTIONAL CHILD CENTER, INC., ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 14–15.

Argued January 20, 2015—Decided March 31, 2015

Providers of “habilitation services” under Idaho’s Medicaid plan arereimbursed by the State’s Department of Health and Welfare. Sec­tion 30(A) of the Medicaid Act requires Idaho’s plan to “assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality ofcare” while “safeguard[ing] against unnecessary utilization of . . .care and services.” 42 U. S. C. §1396a(a)(30)(A). Respondents, pro­viders of habilitation services, sued petitioners, Idaho Health andWelfare Department officials, claiming that Idaho reimbursed themat rates lower than §30(A) permits, and seeking to enjoin petitioners to increase these rates. The District Court entered summary judg­ment for the providers. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, concluding thatthe Supremacy Clause gave the providers an implied right of action, and that they could sue under this implied right of action to seek an injunction requiring Idaho to comply with §30(a).

Held: The judgment is reversed.

567 Fed. Appx. 496, reversed.

JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV, concluding that the Supremacy Clause does not confer a private right of action, and that Medicaid providers cannot sue for an injunc­tion requiring compliance with §30(a). Pp. 3–10.

(a) The Supremacy Clause instructs courts to give federal law pri­ority when state and federal law clash. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210.

[...]

At 3:

II

The Supremacy Clause, Art. VI, cl. 2, reads:

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

It is apparent that this Clause creates a rule of decision: Courts “shall” regard the “Constitution,” and all laws “made in Pursuance thereof,” as “the supreme Law of the Land.” They must not give effect to state laws that conflict with federal laws. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210 (1824).

http://loc.heinonline.org/loc/Page?handle=hein.usreports/usrep22&id=9&collection=journals&index=usreportsloc#217

Gibbons v Ogden, 22 US 1, 209-11 (1824)

9 Wheat. 1, 6 L.Ed 29

United States Supreme Court

GIBBONS v. OGDEN, (1824)

No. 43

Decided: March 2, 1824

[...]

At 209-211

Since, however, in exercising the power of regulating their own purely internal affairs, whether

[22 U.S. 210]

of trading or police, the States may sometimes enact laws, the validity of which depends on their interfering with, and being contrary to, an act of Congress passed in pursuance of the constitution, the Court will enter upon the inquiry, whether the laws of New-York, as expounded by the highest tribunal of that State, have, in their application to this case, come into collision with an act of Congress, and deprived a citizen of a right to which that act entitles him. Should this collision exist, it will be immaterial whether those laws were passed in virtue of a concurrent power ‘to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States,’ or, in virtue of a power to regulate their domestic trade and police. In one case and the other, the acts of New-York must yield to the law of Congress; and the decision sustaining the privilege they confer, against a right given by a law of the Union, must be erroneous.

This opinion has been frequently expressed in this Court, and is founded, as well on the nature of the government as on the words of the constitution. In argument, however, it has been contended, that if a law passed by a State, in the exercise of its acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by Congress in pursuance of the constitution, they affect the subject, and each other, like equal opposing powers.

But the framers of our constitution foresaw this state of things, and provided for it, by declaring the supremacy not only of itself, but of the laws made in pursuance of it. The nullity of any act,

[22 U.S. 211]

inconsistent with the constitution, is produced by the declaration, that the constitution is the supreme law. The appropriate application of that part of the clause which confers the same supremacy on laws and treaties, is to such acts of the State Legislatures as do not transcend their powers, but, though enacted in the execution of acknowledged State powers, interfere with, or are contrary to the laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the constitution, or some treaty made under the authority of the United States. In every such case, the act of Congress, or the treaty, is supreme; and the law of the State, though enacted in the exercise of powers not controverted, must yield to it.

http://loc.heinonline.org/loc/Page?handle=hein.usreports/usrep457&id=675#675

Edgar v. Mite Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 631 (23 June 1982)

Of course, a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute; and

"[a] conflict will be found 'where compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility...,' Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or where the state 'law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.' Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., [430 U. S. 519,] 526, 540-541 [(1977)].

Accord, De Canas v. Bica, 424 U. S. 351, 363 (1976)." Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 U. S. 151, 158 (1978).

Prohibition was totally different. Alcohol use was decreasing before Prohibition. During Prohibition it increased.

You think it is different with weed or coke?

Hera koka hash LSD:

There is no such thing as a State law that effectively nullifies a Federal law. No matter how many times it is repeated, it continues to be bullshit.

I grasp your point and agree, having said much the same.

Deckard is saying that it would take the vast majority of in-state prosecutions off the books and that the feds can't possibly take up the slack with their own enforcement and prosecutions. And he is probably right.

So, in the same sense that jury nullification doesn't actually repeal any laws but will sharply diminish enforcement and prosecutions, it could be said that taking state enforcement of federal laws off the books entirely does effectively nullify the impact of federal law in the state. The federal law isn't nullified by the state law but will have a huge impace on the vast numbers of arrests/prosecutions/convictions.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

“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.

Amendment X

Teacher's Companion Lesson (PDF)

The Tenth Amendment expresses the principle that undergirds the entire plan of the original Constitution: the national government possesses only those powers delegated to it. The Framers of the Tenth Amendment had two purposes in mind when they drafted it. The first was a necessary rule of construction. The second was to reaffirm the nature of the federal system.

Because the Constitution created a government of limited and enumerated powers, the Framers initially believed that a bill of rights was not only unnecessary, but also potentially dangerous. State constitutions recognized a general legislative power in the state governments; hence, limits in the form of state bills of rights were necessary to guard individual rights against the excess of governmental power. The Constitution, however, conferred only the limited powers that were listed or enumerated in the federal Constitution. Because the federal government could not reach objects not granted to it, the Federalists originally argued, there was no need for a federal bill of rights. Further, the Federalists insisted that, under the normal rules of statutory construction, by forbidding the government from acting in certain areas, a bill of rights necessarily implied that the government could act in all other areas not forbidden to it. That would change the federal government from one of limited powers to one, like the states, of general legislative powers.

The Federalists relented and passed the Bill of Rights in the First Congress only after making certain that no such implication could arise from the prohibitions of the Bill of Rights. Hence, the Tenth Amendment—a rule of construction that warns against interpreting the other amendments in the Bill of Rights to imply powers in the national government that were not granted by the original document.

That interpretative rule was vital because some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights purport to limit federal powers that are not actually granted by the original Constitution and thus might give rise to a (faulty) inference that the Bill of Rights implied the existence of such powers. The First Amendment, for instance, states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Did that mean that the original Constitution had therefore granted Congress power to abridge those freedoms? The Federalists did not think so, which is why they initially opposed inclusion of a bill of rights. As Alexander Hamilton observed of the unamended constitutional text in The Federalist No. 84: "Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain everything they have no need for particular reservations....Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?" Numerous other important figures made similar statements during the ratification debates. Obviously, the nation chose to include the Bill of Rights, but only with the Tenth Amendment as a bulwark against implying any alteration in the original scheme of enumerated powers. If Congress was not originally delegated power to regulate speech or the press, no such power is granted or implied by adoption of the Bill of Rights.

Despite the Framers' concerns and the clear text of the Tenth Amendment, the Supreme Court indulged precisely this form of reasoning. In the Legal Tender Cases in 1871, declining to locate the power to issue paper money in any enumerated power, the Court wrote: And, that important powers were understood by the people who adopted the Constitution to have been created by it, powers not enumerated, and not included incidentally in any one of those enumerated, is shown by the amendments....They tend plainly to show that, in the judgment of those who adopted the Constitution, there were powers created by it, neither expressly specified nor deducible from any one specified power, or ancillary to it alone, but which grew out of the aggregate of powers conferred upon the government, or out of the sovereignty instituted. Most of these amendments are denials of power which had not been expressly granted, and which cannot be said to have been necessary and proper for carrying into execution any other powers. Such, for example, is the prohibition of any laws respecting the establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.

This is the precisely the kind of reasoning that the Tenth Amendment was designed to prohibit.

While providing a rule of construction for the relationship between the Bill of Rights and the scheme of enumerated powers, the Tenth Amendment also affirms the Constitution's basic scheme of defining the relationship between the national and state governments. The Founders were wary of centralized government. At the same time, the failure of the Articles of Confederation revealed the necessity of vesting some authority independent of the states in a national government. The Constitution therefore created a novel system of mixed sovereignty. Each government possessed direct authority over citizens: the states generally over their citizens, and the federal government under its assigned powers. In addition, the states qua states were made a constituency within the national government's structure. The state legislatures chose Senators, determined how presidential electors should be chosen, and defined who would be eligible to vote for Members of the House of Representatives. As noted in The Federalist No. 39, the new government was "in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both." Critical to this mixed system was the scheme of enumerated federal powers, which allows the federal government to operate only within defined spheres of jurisdiction where it is acknowledged to be supreme.

As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 45: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiation, and foreign commerce;...The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.

Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison (1803), "the powers of the [national] legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written." Alexander Hamilton, urging ratification in New York, recognized in The Federalist No. 33 that a congressional act beyond its enumerated powers is "merely [an] act of usurpation" which "deserves to be treated as such." The Tenth Amendment memorialized this constitutional solution of carefully enumerated, and thus limited, federal powers.

The Tenth Amendment had limited judicial application in the nation's first half century. No decision turned upon it, and in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Chief Justice Marshall declined an invitation to use it as a vehicle for narrowly construing federal powers. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Tenth Amendment was connected to the later rejected states' rights doctrine of "dual federalism," which maintained that the national and state governments were "separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres." Tarble's Case (1872). In contrast, the Framers' conception of the government was not one of "distinct sovereignties," but rather of a mixed sovereignty in which states were an integral and vital part. Beginning with the New Deal Court, the Supreme Court has countenanced an expansion of federal powers far beyond the expectations of those who framed and ratified the Constitution. The extent to which those developments are consistent with the Constitution depends on the construction of the various enumerated powers. Because the Tenth Amendment is a textual reaffirmation of the scheme of enumerated powers, the modern expansion of the federal government's role in national life has shaped, and perhaps altered, the role of the Tenth Amendment in modern jurisprudence.

Modern Supreme Court decisions recognize few limits to the scope of Congress's enumerated powers. Under current law, Congress may regulate, among other things, manufacturing, agriculture, labor relations, and many other purely intrastate activities and transactions. Indeed, in one case the Supreme Court upheld the power of Congress to regulate a single farmer's production of wheat intended for consumption at his own table. Wickard v. Filburn (1942). That expansion has generated federal–state conflicts that were not contemplated by the Founding generation, such as federal regulation of state-government employment relations, federal use of state officials to enforce federal regulatory regimes, direct federal commands to state agencies or legislatures, and extensive control of state policy through conditions on federal spending for states. These conflicts call for interpretation of the relevant grants of federal power, most significantly the Commerce Clause, the Spending Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause (see Article I, Section 8). If the Constitution grants such power to Congress, the Tenth Amendment's terms are satisfied; if it does not, the Tenth Amendment is violated. That is the meaning of the oft-repeated statement of Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone in United States v. Darby (1941) that the Tenth Amendment is "but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered."

In National League of Cities v. Usery (1976), however, the Supreme Court indicated that the Tenth Amendment carries some substantive protection of the states. In that case, the Court invoked the Tenth Amendment to prevent application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to state employees. Justice William H. Rehnquist's opinion barred the federal government from transgressing upon the "functions essential to [a state's] separate and independent existence," activities taken as state qua state, which he regarded as protected by the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. National League of Cities overruled Maryland v. Wirtz (1968), an earlier case in which Justice William O. Douglas, joined by Justice Potter Stewart, had dissented because "what is done here is nonetheless such a serious invasion of state sovereignty protected by the Tenth Amendment that it is in my view not consistent with our constitutional federalism."

The Court, in National League of Cities, embraced Justice William O. Douglas's earlier dissent, but nine years later, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985), the Court overruled National League of Cities. The language and reasoning of Garcia led many observers to think that the federal judiciary would no longer entertain federalism challenges to congressional exercises of power and that the states' participation in the national political process would be their only protection against federal encroachments.

In recent years, that perception has changed somewhat, as the Supreme Court has revived the Tenth Amendment to enforce discrete limits on congressional attempts to extend enumerated powers to state operations. The Rehnquist Court, for example, has repeatedly curtailed Congress's ability to "commandeer" the machinery of state government. In New York v. United States (1992), the Court prevented Congress from requiring a state legislature either to take care of a problem that Congress did not itself wish to deal with under its own enumerated powers (disposal of low-level radioactive wastes) or to take title to these hazardous waste materials and be responsible for their safe disposal. In Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991), the Court noted the serious Tenth Amendment implications that would be raised by a congressional attempt to regulate the employment of state judges. And in Printz v. United States (1997), the Court barred Congress from requiring state executive officials to implement a federal scheme of firearms regulation. Outside of this context of direct federal control of state operations, however, the Court has made little direct use of the Tenth Amendment.

Several other recent cases limit federal power without expressly relying upon the Tenth Amendment. United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000) both struck down federal laws premised on an expansive application of the Commerce Clause—the regulation of guns in school zones (Lopez) and the creation of a federal civil remedy for gender-motivated violence (Morrison). To the extent that the Tenth Amendment is a codification of the principle of enumerated federal power, those decisions implicate the Tenth Amendment, as does every decision involving the scope of federal power.

The recent decisions employing the Tenth Amendment to limit congressional power have been enormously controversial, both among those who think those decisions go too far by applying nebulous, nontextual theories of federalism and among those who think that they do not go far enough by refusing to tackle head-on the modern expansion of enumerated federal powers. But the Court itself remains unsure as to precisely what role the Tenth Amendment plays in its constitutional analyses. Prohibiting the commandeering of state instrumentalities, for instance, may be a straightforward construction of the limits of congressional discretion under its enumerated powers; or it may be that such laws are not "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" federal powers and are therefore beyond the powers delegated to Congress.

On the other hand, the Tenth Amendment may itself pose a substantive limit on assumedly granted powers. Even if modern developments permit (or require) expansion of congressional authority well beyond its eighteenth-century limits, such expansion cannot extinguish the "retained" role of the states as limited but independent sovereigns. The Tenth Amendment thus may function as a sort of "fail-safe" mechanism: Congress has broad power to regulate, and even to subject states to generally applicable federal laws, but the power ends when it reaches too far into the retained dominion of state autonomy.