Issue Position: Constitutional Government

Issue Position

Unless we bind our government with the chains of the Constitution, as our founders intended, we will be inevitably drawn along the road to serfdom.

In the days when we declared war as the Constitution clearly prescribes, before committing our soldiers overseas, wars were fought with clearly defined objectives, and were won with honor. Now they drag on and on, with no clear mission and no end in sight, as suicide rates among our brave men and women skyrocket.

Meanwhile, Congress increasingly delegates powers to the Executive branch, so that unelected mid-level bureaucrats, with civil service protections that make them difficult to replace, hold increasing power over our lives. In some cases, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is abused so that these unelected, minor bureaucrats can effectively override the decisions of elected State legislatures.

In addition to the Supremacy Clause, the Commerce Clause has been abused to allow the government to intrude upon the internal affairs of the States and the People, with increasingly specious arguments adopted by the courts.

To address these problems, I will:

Support or introduce legislation which would require a Declaration of War before any U.S. troops can be committed to combat.

Support or introduce legislation which would prohibit Congress from delegating its sovereign power to the Executive branch.

Support or introduce legislation to clarify and restrain the powers of the federal government, under the Supremacy and Commerce clauses.

These protections will be even stronger if they are incorporated into our Constitution as explicit Amendments. I will seek to do this also, but the process of amendment can take years or decades, so I will seek federal legislation to stop these abuses in the interim.

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