Kansas Secretary Of State Kobach Takes Eric Holder To School On The Constitution

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Secretary of State in Kansas, Kris Kobach, has made a statement on Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter written to Sam Brownback about Kansas’s Second Amendment Protection Act, SB 102.  This is a great lesson in constitutionality, kiddies.  Pull up a chair, warm your hands around the campfire, and lend an ear.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I have other things in the news today.  I had mentioned this in the first hour of the program.  Secretary of State in Kansas, Kris Kobach, has made a statement on Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter written to Sam Brownback about Kansas’s Second Amendment Protection Act, SB 102.  This is a great lesson in constitutionality, kiddies.  Pull up a chair, warm your hands around the campfire, and lend an ear.  Kobach writes:

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As one of the co-authors of SB 102 and a former professor of constitutional law, I ensured that it was drafted to withstand any legal challenge. SB 102 states that a firearm that is assembled in Kansas, that is stamped “Made in Kansas,” and that never leaves the State of Kansas is not subject to regulation by the federal government. [Mike: Listen to this. This is key.] It was drafted with the intent to assert Kansas’s authority as a co-equal sovereign under the United States Constitution to regulate a matter that is outside Congress’s jurisdiction under the Interstate Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8. It was also drafted to stave off unconstitutional legislation pending in Congress that not only infringes upon the Second Amendment rights of Kansas Citizens, but also exceeds Congress’s constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

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In his letter, Holder makes the simplistic and incorrect claim that “SB 102 directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional.” He rests his claim on the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. However, what he fails to mention is the basic constitutional rule that a federal rule that exceeds Congress’s power has absolutely no ability to preempt a contrary state law.

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Mike:  How true, Secretary of State Kobach.  You are absolutely 100 percent correct.  I was talking earlier about Albert Taylor Bledsoe’s book Is Davis A Traitor? the greatest treatise ever written on the Constitution as a compact.  A compact is key here in our discussions because the only way to get into a compact is to have consenting parties, meaning everybody brings something to the table, everyone is a party or partner to the deal, and everyone has the right to determine what is the extent of the powers granted or the responsibilities assumed under the compact.  That’s what Kobach is reaffirming here.

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For the past 80 years, Congress has used the interstate commerce power as a conduit for asserting regulatory authority over numerous specific subjects that have nothing to do with interstate commerce—including firearms. While some federal regulations of firearms are permissible exercises of the interstate commerce power, others clearly are not. [Mike: I’d like to know what. The Second Amendment says no, not unless there’s a declared war and you have to regulate the militia, unless Congress is making trade and firearms regular across state lines, Congress doesn’t have any authority none. He may just be saying that because he’s a politician and he wants to give Holder a chance to save face or Congress a chance to save face.] One of the things that the federal government cannot do is regulate firearms that have never traveled in interstate commerce and that have no substantial effect on interstate commerce—firearms covered by SB 102.

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Mike Church Show Transcript: Kansas Joins The Nullification Fight Over Gun Laws

Mike:  This is the distinction here between myself and many people that write and talk about this particular issue.  You can make the claim that the interstate commerce clause cannot be used to pass this regulation.  I will wholeheartedly agree with you.  I am also going to tell you that Amendment Two added to the Constitution in August of 1789 — I know just a little bit about this because I wrote an entire feature length audio feature on it called “Militias Are Good And They Are Good For You, Part I and II.”  As a matter of fact, I’d like to send Secretary Kobach of “Militias Are Good And They Are Good For You” because I believe he might change his tune and then might take the totally defensible and irrevocable stance or indefatigable stance — that’s not the right word either, is it — unbeatable stance that the Second Amendment is put into the Constitution and added to it.

It is an amendment, but it doesn’t matter that it’s an amendment.  Once an amendment is added and ratified, it is then part of the Constitution.  So saying “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is a blanket statement that Congress will stay out of this.  They put the militia clause in there because militias are listed in Article I, Section 8.  Militias are listed because Congress may have to call militias to be regulars.  If the militia is called up, then Congress has to be able to prescribe orders of discipline for them.  That’s the end of the discussion.  That’s where the discussion ends.  It doesn’t say anything about the muskets, nothing about the balls, nothing about the powder, nothing about who makes the weapons, nothing, zero.  No power was granted, zero.  That’s all you need to know.  They need to butt the hell out of this.  Of course, they’re not doing to, but that’s why they need to butt the hell out of it.  That’s why that amendment is now part of the Constitution.  Once you understand this, then you’re going to understand the incorporation doctrine and why it’s a bad thing.  Then you will understand why it is that Kansas doesn’t need to go to the extraordinary step of trying to explain the interstate commerce clause.  They don’t have to.  It doesn’t matter of the gun leaves the state of Kansas.

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Mike Church Show Transcript: Louisiana, Incorporation, And States’ Rights

Holder also threatens that “the United States will take all appropriate action, including litigation if necessary, to prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law.” With respect to any litigation, we will happily meet Mr. Holder in court. With respect to his concern that federal officials must be allowed to enforce federal law, Mr. Holder’s statement is a curious one. He was evidently not concerned that ATFE officials be allowed to enforce federal law when his agency oversaw the “Fast and Furious” operation to walk guns into the hands of Mexican cartels. And he is not concerned about the fact that the Obama Administration is directly ordering ICE officials to violate federal law through the executive amnesty for illegal aliens that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano launched in June 2012. Holder’s lawyers are currently attempting to defend that violation of federal law in court.

In conclusion, the State of Kansas stands firmly on the principles laid out in the United States Constitution. SB 102 is fully supported by the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and the limited scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause. The Obama Administration has repeatedly violated the United States Constitution for the past four-and-a-half-years. That abuse cannot continue.

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Mike:  I would say not only has the Obama administration violated the Constitution, the Bush administration before it, Clinton administration, Bush administration before that, Reagan administration, Carter, Nixon — oh my did Nixon violate it — Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt — the king of all violators.  So some good stuff in there.

End Mike Church Show Transcript