Fed-Up TX Leaders Take Stand, Tell Feds They Can’t Control Sovereign State

By C. Douglas Golden

When Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, it became clear that the most they could do was obstruct.

They couldn’t really pass any bills that Republicans would look at seriously, at least given the fact they weren’t willing to work with GOP members of Congress. They weren’t going to be able to set the legislative agenda. So, what were they going to do?

Investigate, investigate, investigate! And while most of these investigations involve members of or actions taken by the Trump administration, they’re also interfering in the matters of individual states, specifically Texas.

According to The Washington Times, both the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties have decided they want to have a look into Texas’ efforts to combat voter fraud, among other things.

Under Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Lone Star State has been arguably the most aggressive in the union in terms of investigating and fighting voter fraud.

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Back in January, the state announced it had found 95,000 potential noncitizens who had registered to vote between 1996 and the present, at least 58,000 of whom had cast a vote in Texas elections.

However, the aforementioned committees have taken an interest in this, mostly because Democrats profess to believe voter fraud doesn’t exist and is instead a pretext to oppress minority voters — as if somehow minorities were less able to obtain voter ID or follow voter registration laws.

According to a news release from Paxton’s office, both committees wanted “privileged and confidential information related to ongoing voter fraud investigations.”

And Texas said no.

“Congress lacks authority to force a sovereign state to produce privileged and confidential documents, particularly those relating to active law enforcement efforts and litigation,” a letter from First Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer to the committees said.

“Granting Congress the power to exercise ‘oversight’ over the constitutional officers of a state engaged in the lawful exercise of that state’s core authority would undermine the fabric of our system of dual sovereignty,” the letter continued. “In this case, that risk would be made particularly acute by the committee’s attempt to force the constitutionally-designated attorney for the State of Texas to divulge privileged and confidential communications with a client concerning the client’s enforcement of Texas law.”

“Texas does not draw its authority from the United States or the United States Constitution, but from its status as a dual sovereign within the union,” Mateer wrote. “The Constitution grants some powers to the national government, but reserves to the individual states ‘a residual and inviolable sovereignty.’”

 

full story at https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/fed-tx-leaders-take-stand-tell-feds-cant-control-sovereign-state/

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