Guest post by Rep. Mark Finchem
Post-Federalist America
Have you stopped to ask yourself why the military-industrial complex, the financial-industrial complex, the education-industrial complex, and in fact every major private sector power group has come to favor the Hamiltonian version of a national government over the Jeffersonian federalism version? It’s really a very simple answer, accumulation of power favors the powerful, never mind that whole consent of the governed thing. The framers of our nation saw first hand the disastrous effect that consolidation of power could do and the threat to individual liberty that it posed around the world; most wanted none of it.
But some clung onto the lust for power, which put them in direct conflict with those who believed that distributed power —states rights with discrete, enumerated national government powers for the common defense— was the secrete to protecting freedom while growing a new nation.
The seeds of post-federalism were sewn early in the history of our country. One of the earliest manifestations of what has today become the all-out power-grab by our out of control national government was, “[W]hen Hamilton introduced his bill to establish a national bank, Jefferson, speaking for those who believed in states’ rights, argued that the Constitution expressly enumerated all the powers belonging to the federal government and reserved all other powers to the states. Nowhere was the federal government empowered to set up a bank.”
We now face the genuine existential threat of power consolidation that runs counter to the consent of the governed, the very heart of federalism. When the political elites associated with the World Economic Forum —the party of Davos— and their captured media outlets attempt to gaslight Americans into believing that scrutiny of an election, which a majority of people view with distrust, arguing that audits such as that near completion in Maricopa County Arizona pose, “A threat to the overall confidence of democracy,” the People become even more suspicious.
Consider this, the Arizona House of Representatives employs the Arizona Auditor General to audit State Agencies regularly. Even the Federal Reserve conducts audits, “The Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve Banks, and the LLCs are all subject to several levels of audit and review. The Reserve Banks’ and LLCs’ financial statements are audited annually.” And these audits are a matter of routine to do what? To assure the People, to give them confidence, that the institutions they rely on are sound, fraud-free, transparent, and operating as designed.
How then can it be then that the auditing of ballots and elections, which are every bit as important as the audits of financial institutions, can be a threat to democracy? If anything, all parties should welcome the opportunity to prove democracy is free, fair, and transparent. Unless, of course, they are not so confident of their win, which gives even more reason to scrutinize the election just past.
The doublespeak about undermining confidence in the 2020 election, about undermining democracy itself, coming from a Congress that is about as trusted as the captured mocking bird media when it comes to the pursuit of truth, showing a 71% disapproval rating, and a 26% approval rating, is laughable. But the claim is deadly serious to our constitutional, democratically elected representative republic. If an election cannot survive an audit demanded by a majority of the polity, federalism is in serious jeopardy. The burden of proof is now on the government —counties, and States— to prove to the People that our elections are more than simulacra, an illusion that we all participate in, but which is decided even before ballots are mailed out in the vote by mail scheme. The State officials including Legislators and Secretaries of State, are responsible for providing oversight, not a federal government that lacks Constitutionally enumerated powers.
The recent threatening “guidance” released by what has come to be regarded and a politically weaponized Department of Justice (that sounds so Orwellian now, like the Ministry of Truth) is an intrusion into the unenumerated [emphasis added] powers of the States under the 10th Amendment. The 10th Amendment constrains the federal government with restrictions but is supremely liberal when it comes to the powers of the States.
“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.”
Combined with restrictions on the federal government under Article I, Sec. 4, Article II, Sec. 1, and the noticeable absence of any prohibition by the States to audit their elections, or power possessed by the various State Legislatures to decertify elections, or even reclaim electors, it is clear that the national government is way outside of its lane when it comes to attempts to restrain the States from what the States should have been doing all along. The very title of the document attempts to impugn the “audit” as if it is not well planned and a legitimate function of the States in their obligation to provide oversight of elections.
So what are the Department of Justice and federal government bureaucracy really afraid of? The legal doctrine of ex doll malo act non orator – a right of action cannot arise out of fraud. Suppose the election is found to be a fraud affecting a large enough number of Electoral College Electors; everything that Joe Biden, and indeed the Congress has done since January 20, 2021, is unenforceable.
Now enters modern feudalism where nobody other than the oligarchs owns property, intellectual, real or personal. If the Department of Justice has its way and causes State Legislators to be awed into submission by its projection of power, abandoning the unenumerated powers reserved for them in the Constitution, then America has become a post-federalist society. Legislatures will have become irrelevant if they have not already become so.
When your values are clear, your decisions become easy.
The Hon. Mark Finchem is a Member of Arizona’s House of Representatives, 55th Legislature. He holds a BA in Government with Emphasis on State and Local Public Policy from Grand Canyon University, summa cum laude, is a Six Sigma certified process engineer, and will soon complete a Masters Degree in Legal Studies and Economics offered through the University of Arizona James E. Rogers Law School.