Can't we all just get along...

Taking Liberties: Montana Lawmaker Wants Feds to Alert Sheriffs on Arrests


Summary:  Republican State Senator from Montana wants to pass a state law that would require Federal Law Enforcement to notify County Sheriffs before taking action.  
 
I'm not sure where he is coming from, or what got him all riled up.  I would suspect, that this guy believes in State's Rights...so do I.  This guy lives in Montana...I wish I lived in Montana.  I'm sure we agree on other things, but so far, that's where they end.  Cases should be worked on what is called a "Need to Know" basis, and if the Sheriff needs to know - he will be notified. 
 
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  It's not just a fancy saying, that is what makes it work. Whatever is NOT delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, is retained by the states.  But if it is in the Constitution, sorry Montana.  Article VI of the Constitution gives federal law supremacy over state laws. 
 
The lawmaker is quoted as saying “How on earth could the states not challenge federal law? That's the way our system of government works.”   Senator...you would have to change the constitution.  Which is allowed.  On his other quotes in the article - Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc., had nothing to do with notifying State or Local authorities, they had to do with tactics, etc.


If he doubts the meaning of Article VI, take it from these guys:

Alexander Hamilton:

"...But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the supreme law of the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a goverment, which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood, though it had not been expressed..."

James Madison:

"...The indiscreet zeal of the adversaries to the Constitution has betrayed them into an attack on this part of it also, without which it would have been evidently and radically defective. To be fully sensible of this, we need only suppose for a moment that the supremacy of the State constitutions had been left complete by a saving clause in their favor. In the first place, as these constitutions invest the State legislatures with absolute sovereignty, in all cases not excepted by the existing articles of Confederation, all the authorities contained in the proposed Constitution, so far as they exceed those enumerated in the Confederation, would have been annulled, and the new Congress would have been reduced to the same impotent condition with their predecessors. In the next place, as the constitutions of some of the States do not even expressly and fully recognize the existing powers of the Confederacy, an express saving of the supremacy of the former would, in such States, have brought into question every power contained in the proposed Constitution. In the third place, as the constitutions of the States differ much from each other, it might happen that a treaty or national law, of great and equal importance to the States, would interfere with some and not with other constitutions, and would consequently be valid in some of the States, at the same time that it would have no effect in others. In fine, the world would have seen, for the first time, a system of government founded on an inversion of the fundamental principles of all government; it would have seen the authority of the whole society every where subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have seen a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members..."

Now, if the Senator doesn't get it, I, having worked in Law Enforcement on both the State and Federal Level, will agree to move to Montana, and work with him on this.  I'm just sayin'...

BTW - I don't know any Montana songs...and I like this one