Contact: Bob Carney Jr. -- (612)-824-4479 (home and business)

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For immediate release                                                                              

Minneapolis, MN, June 21, 2010 -- Moderate Progressive Republican candidate for Governor Bob Carney Jr. today strongly condemned Republican endorsed candidate Tom Emmer's proposal, set forth in yesterday's Star Tribune, subheaded "States need veto on federal power, together with the proposed Minnesota constitutional amendment behind the article."

Carney and Emmer are on the Minnesota Republican primary ballot, along with two other candidates: Ole Savior and Leslie Davis.

"Tom's article sounds appealing in many ways. But when you look under the hood of what he's proposing, you find an anarchist and an executioner," Carney said.

In the 2010 Legislative session, Emmer sponsored a proposed Constitutional Amendment (HF3738) to effect what he suggested in the Star Tribune op-ed.

Mr. Emmer's proposed amendment has these main features:

• Minnesotans would be held "immune from any federal laws that exceed the federal government's enumerated constitutional powers." Note: the Tenth Amendment -- the one Mr. Emmer is so fond of -- does not use the word "enumerated", it uses the word "delegated" -- and this must be understood with reference to both the "necessary and proper" clause, and the ratification of the Federal Constitution by "We the People".

• A Federal law would not apply in Minnesota unless the law was:

  • approved by a two-thirds vote of members of each house of the Legislature.

  • Signed by the Governor.

    Note: it is not clear what would happen if the identical law was introduced as a state law, passed by a majority in each house, and signed by the Governor. Would it be invalid because the Federal government had passed an identical law, but it didn't pass by two-thirds in Minnesota?

• "Before voting to approve a federal law, each legislator must individually affirm that the legislator has read the federal law and understands it." Note: apparently legislators can continue to pass state laws without reading or understanding them.

  A further question emerges: would this proposed amendment apply to all Federal laws on the books, or only to new ones?

   

  "Drivel"

  "There can be legitimate debate over the extent to which our Federal system is out of balance in favor of an overly powerful, remote, and sometimes arbitrary Federal Government. However, I am absolutely STUNNED that an endorsed candidate of a major party in Minnesota is spouting the kind of drivel the language of Mr. Emmer's constitutional amendment represents. If he thinks he is advancing a test case to serve the cause of greater States' rights, and a return to more emphasis on state and local government, I can only say that if his proposed amendment ever did make it to the U.S. Supreme Court as a test case, it would be an opportunity for pyrotechnic opinion writing the likes of which this country has never seen before," Carney said.

  "The Citizens of Minnesota -- the 'Money Media' -- everyone -- MUST WAKE UP TO THE FACT THAT THE MINNESOTA REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS ENDORSED A POWDER KEG FOR GOVERNOR. I can only hope some of the delegates who voted for Mr. Emmer genuinely didn't realize what they were voting for, and now regret it. This man is not a Republican, he is not a Constitutionalist, he is a SUCCESSIONIST. There is a Republican primary, and I am a serious candidate for Governor. People in Minnesota simply must be told these facts," Carney said.

  Carney concluded: "The rank and file Republicans in this state must vote in the primary to nominate me for Governor, for this simple reason: whatever my faults, I am a reasonable person, and I am a Republican. Mr. Emmer is neither. I regret having to write a news release with such stark, harsh language about a primary election, but it is called for under the circumstances of what Mr. Emmer has proposed to do."

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