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Show It's A Constitutional Issue Governor Leavitt stood before a large audience in April 1994 at the Western States Summit in Phoenix, Ariz, and stated that he wanted to have a Conference of States giving states authority equal to the federal government's. He is pushing for the revival of the Tenth Amendment which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved re-served to the states respectively, or to the people." The governor wants to bring the power back to the states ... this is commendable. The Tenth Amendment also clearly states that the power belongs to the people and ' those inherent powers' of the people, when consolidated, are superior in every respect to government gov-ernment ... either federal or state. Governor Leavitt has stated that he no longer wants the federal government to issue mandates to the states and his Conference of the States is an effort to put power into the states hands and offset these federal fed-eral mandates. I am just a little confused now. Our governor is fighting against any more federal mandates to the states while he is issuing state mandates to the counties. He has mandated to the County Commissioners - Do not come back to me with a Zero Wilderness Proposal - in spile of what your people want! Admirably, the Commissioners in Wayne asked the question - "now just what country do we live in after all?" All three Wayne County Commissioners along with Piute County Commissioners have signed the Citizen's Zero Wilderness Proposal because in every Wilderness Hearing, the citizen's of their counties coun-ties clearly stated NO MORE WILDERNESS! Garfield and Kane County hearings voiced these same sentiments. The Wayne and Piute Commissioners have clearly demonstrated that they believe in the principle reaffirmed by Congress in a joint resolution in 1935: "The government of the United States is not a concession to the people from someone higher up. It is the creation and the creature crea-ture of the people themselves, as absolute sovereigns." Joel Greer Boulder |