Part Four - Don't Tread on States' Rights - Virginia: A Multi-pronged, Grassroots Success

Don't Tread on States RightsMomentum is growing to re-assert the proper boundaries around the federal government vis a vis states rights as put forth in the U.S. Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment. The recent federal takeover of health-care has ignited the movement of 10th Amendment proponents. Addressing this issue below are: Utah Congressman Rob Bishop; Arizona Clint Bolick, director, Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation; Wyoming Benjamin Barr, Counsel for Wyoming Liberty Group; Virginia John Taylor, president, Virginia Institute for Public Policy; and a concluding summary by Merrill Matthews, resident scholar, Institute for Policy Innovation.

Part Four - Virginia: A Multi-pronged, Grassroots Success by By John Taylor: On March 10, Virginia's General Assembly passed legislation that will protect residents from being forced to purchase health insurance or to participate in any health-care system against their will. Idaho followed suit. Now, 39 states have introduced, or will introduce, similar legislation.

The Virginia Institute for Public Policy played a key role in defining the health-care debate. Concurrently, the Institute; Tertium Quids, VIPP's independent 501(c)4; its syndicated Freedom & Prosperity Radio program; and the Tuesday Morning Group coalition, which it hosts, mobilized the grassroots to ensure the legislation made it through the Senate and the House of Delegates.

Every year, Tertium Quids develops a legislative agenda. This year the Health Care Freedom Act was included. Five days a week an update was sent to the more than 900 members of the Tuesday Morning Group that detailed what sub-committee, committee or House each bill was in; who was on that sub-committee or committee; the e-mails and telephone numbers of the Delegates or Senators; and what day the bill would be voted on. Coalition members spread the word throughout their own organizations to contact legislators.

In 2009 when the coalition first began its health care campaign in Virginia, the goal was to stop health care reform from passing in Congress. As circumstances developed, we began to look at the Health Care Freedom Act as another method of preventing federal government overreach if Congress did pass health care reform.

Originally, we thought a Democrat-controlled state Senate would perhaps be an insurmountable obstacle. A pleasant surprise: Enough Democrat state legislators wanted to protect their state-level prerogatives from federal intrusion, or were subject to grassroots pressure. Ultimately, the grassroots, multi-prong approach succeeded in advancing the 10th Amendment.
Also See: Part One - Don't Tread on States' Rights - Federalism: A Key to Liberty
Part Two - Don't Tread on States' Rights - Arizona: The Epicenter of Federalism
Part Three - Don't Tread on States' Rights - Wyoming: Face-to-Face With the 10th

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Tags: 10 Amendment, SPN, State Policy Network, States Rights, Virginia, liberty, John Taylor
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