PHOENIX, Arizona - March 21, 2011 - Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce (R) claimed last week that Americans are not citizens of the United States but rather citizens of their respective states.
"Most of us weren’t around when the Constitution was written," said Pearce aid during his speech at an Oceanside Tea Party rally. "But you remember we kind of existed before Congress; the states. We created the Congress; we created the federal government by contract. Do you know what existed before the Congress? The states."
Members of the Arizona Legislature, led by Pearce, have introduced a bill that attempts to grant Arizona the power to ignore federal laws with which it does not want to comply.
"Do you know you’re not a citizen of the United States?" Pearce continued. "You’re a citizen of a sovereign state. The fifty sovereign states make up (the) united States of America; we’re citizens of those sovereign states. It is not a delegated authority. It’s an inherent authority that states have over the federal government."
If passed and signed into law, Senate Bill 1433 would create a 12-member committee within the state legislature with the power to review and recommend to the full legislature laws they think are unconstitutional. The full legislature would then have the power to nullify the federal statute by a majority vote.
The legality of the proposed legislation is questionable, as it runs counter to Article VI, Clause 2 and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which have been interpreted as making federal law trump state law.
