Ken Cuccinelli - The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty

Copyright 2013 by Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Forum, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

C ROWN F ORUM with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3710-7

Jacket design by Michael Nagin

v3.1

When a president is willing to repeatedly disregard the law to

force his radical policies on the American people,

we become the last line of defense against

a government out of control.

M ORE THAN TWO centuries ago, thirteen American states, after winning their hard-fought independence from the most powerful military in the world, joined together to assure that future generations of Americans would never again be subservient to a central power. Representatives from every state signed a contract to form a federal government that would provide for their mutual defense, facilitate interstate commerce, and guarantee liberty for all citizens.

This contractthe Constitution of the United Statesspecifically limited the powers of the federal government to a short list of enumerated functions, and the accompanying Bill of Rights stated explicitly that all other policy matters would be left to the people and the states. The Constitution is not a piece of legislation that can be changed merely by a vote in Congress or waived by a presidential edict. It is a legally binding contract between two partiesthe American people and their federal governmentthat must be protected by the states and enforced by our courts.

However, state and federal judges have for too long looked the other way as politicians and unelected bureaucrats have systematically violated this contract and eroded the liberties of the American people in the process. For decades, congressmen, senators, and presidents of both parties have run roughshod over constitutional limits and created unsustainable levels of debt and dysfunction.

I can say with some authority after fourteen years in the U.S. House and Senate that too many federal politiciansno matter which party is in powerwill continue to spend, borrow, and grow the federal government until it eventually collapses under its own weight. They will continue to try to fix problems caused by excessive government with more government programs and spending, all while extracting more and more money and liberty from the people. Unless the states demand that the courts enforce the contractual limits of federal power, the federal government will fail, and it will bring the states and the people down with it.

Ken Cuccinellis The Last Line of Defense provides freedom-loving Americans and our states with the blueprint to save America and the cause of liberty. Ken has a brilliant legal mind and is a rare package of intellect, courage, and tenacity all with a winsome presentation of the benefits of liberty and limited government. As attorney general of Virginia, he has boldly demonstrated how states can begin to restrain the ever-growing federal behemoth.

For example, Ken, in tandem with twenty-seven other state attorneys general, brought a lawsuit against the government to stop the federal takeover of Americas health care system. The states won the central constitutional argument of the case, and except for some inexplicable tortured logic by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Americans would have been saved from another imposition on their liberty and another debt-ridden federal program. While the overall case was lost, that effort has inspired states to work together to attempt to force the federal government to live within the restraints of the Constitution.

In several other instances, such as with the EPA and the National Labor Relations Board, the states have been and continue to be successful in pushing back against the federal government. This book explains how they are doing it.

States are leading in other ways as well. While the bad news is that the federal government appears to be headed toward a meltdown, the good news is that many states are demonstrating how responsible, limited government can work for the benefit of every citizen. For example, many states have passed right-to-work laws that protect the rights of workers not to join a union. The result has been a more attractive environment for business, more jobs, and increased tax revenues without raising taxes. Those states are also improving education with more school choice; creating business-friendly environments with fewer regulations, fewer taxes, and better protection from predatory lawsuits; and improving family life by upholding traditional values.

Unfortunately, there are other states run by liberal-progressive politicians that foolishly continue to move in the opposite direction: raising taxes, increasing regulations, expanding unionization, growing government and debt, and replacing voluntary societal values with provably destructive politically correct government values.

Because of these policies, many of these liberal-progressive states will be bankrupt within the next five to ten years as a result of bloated budgets, unfunded pension plans, and antibusiness policies. Some of these governments are already looking to the federal government for your tax dollars to bail them out from their own irresponsible decisions. These states will also try to use the federal government to stop the advance of liberty in other states. They will attempt to pass federal legislation or secure court rulings to stop school choice and will try to use federal policies to impose on other states the same onerous taxes, expensive regulations, and high-energy costs that have chased their own citizens, businesses, and prosperity away. Rather than learn from their successful limited-government counterparts, they often instead seek to spread the misery, to suppress the natural competition that successful statesthose that believe in the power of the people over the power of governmentrepresent.

Federal politicians have already proven they do not have the wisdom, will, or courage to say no to these liberal-progressive states and to the unions, trial lawyers, and other special interests that want to impose their misguided ideas and values on the entire country.

There is hope, though. As more conservative, free-market states show their citizens through experience that limited-government ideas preserve liberty and create success and prosperity, there is hope that Americans will demand the same proven and principled approach to governing at the federal level. And as Ken and his fellow attorneys general keep fighting continuing federal overreach, they are making more citizens aware of the threat such overreach poses to their personal and economic freedom, eventually leading them to the conclusion that they need to change their elected representatives in Washington if they are to change the direction of their country.

There is but one element of government, and that is the people For a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it. For a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it