Last week, Convention of States Action President Mark Meckler predicted that Joe Biden would try to impose nationwide mask and vaccine mandates without actually imposing any official mandates.
He would do this, Mark predicted, by using the deep pockets of the federal government to bribe or threaten state and local officials to impose these mandates.
Over the weekend, we learned that Biden and his cronies are doing exactly that.
Responding to the will of his constituents, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who is also a Convention of States endorser) banned school districts from requiring students to wear masks. Children are at little risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID, and no evidence exists that schools are vectors of transmission or that mask mandates work in schools.
DeSantis has the authority to make this decision, but Biden is using taxpayer dollars to try to undermine Floridians. Fox News reported Saturday that U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote a letter to DeSantis and Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran informing them that the federal government would provide funds to school districts that defy the governor’s order and risk losing state funding.
“Florida’s recent actions to block school districts from voluntarily adopting science-based strategies for preventing the spread of COVID-19 that are aligned with the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts students and staff at risk,” Cardona wrote.
This is a clear violation of state sovereignty and a gross instance of federal overreach. The people of Florida elected Governor DeSantis. They don't believe schools should be able to impose mask mandates, and the governor acted on that belief. In our federalist system of government, Washington doesn't have the power to meddle in state affairs in this way. And they certainly don't have the authority to use taxpayer dollars from residents of other states to impose mandates on Floridians.
Biden, of course, doesn't care. He'll do anything the courts allow him to do, and over the last 100 years, the courts have consistently ruled to expand federal power. If we want to change how Washington operates, we can't look to Washington. We can't look to Congress, the President, the courts, or the Deep State. We must look to the states, and our most powerful tool is an Article V Convention of States.
A Convention of States has the power to propose constitutional amendments that limit federal power and spending. These amendments, for example, can prohibit the feds from spending money on anything under state control. If a state controls education, Washington can't spend money on that topic--including by paying the salaries of administrators who defy state orders.
Washington will never stop expanding its power. If we want to rebalance power between the federal and state governments, we must take matters into our own hands--and we can do that with a Convention of States.
