The Liberty Amendment
Contents
The Liberty Amendment
Article I. Federal Funding
In order to restore the balance of power to Sovereign Individuals and the representative States as their agents, the prohibition of federal capitations shall be reinstated; the Sixteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is hereby repealed and rescinded. All federal taxes shall henceforth be levied in direct proportion to the enumeration of population for each State as determined by Census, and in the same manner as Representation in the House is determined by Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and as amended by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The legislature of each State shall determine the method used for receipt of funds to be contributed to the Treasury, but may not emit Bills of Credit. The State, along with any party that such State allows to contribute on its behalf, may determine the programs and budgets to which respective contributions are made.
Any revenue derived directly by the Federal Government must be in accordance with Article 1. of the United States Constitution.
Article II. Balanced Budget
No appropriation or authorization of expenditures shall exceed revenues. Any new Money borrowed on the credit of the United States shall require the approval of two thirds of both Houses of Congress, and shall be repaid within one year. In all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. All existing debts must be repaid and the federal budget fully balanced within ten years of ratification of this Amendment. All such debt shall be reduced in ten equal annual installments.
Any fraction not agreed by Congress in accordance with Article One, in any of those years and in the future, shall be reduced to zero in the following manner:
Each member of the House of Representatives shall be given ten ballots with which he shall rank the programs or budgets that he would prefer to be eliminated. He may combine and divide ballots. The programs or budgets receiving the greatest number of ballots, but excluding funds appropriated directly by a State or States for a specified purpose expressly enumerated in this Constitution, shall be eliminated until the required balance is reached. Programs and budgets receiving an equal ballot total shall be treated as one. Any shortfall shall require additional rounds of balloting.
Article III. Sound Money
Federal, State, and privately owned central banks and reserves, and other official monopolies or federally created instrumentalities, being injurious to the economic health of a free country and competitive economy, are hereby abolished. Any currency established by Congress must be based on a precious metal standard, must be defined in terms of the weight of the metal at the time of issue, and must be directly convertible to gold or silver coin. The federal government may not directly or indirectly engage in the practice of fractional reserve banking, or define legal tender for private transactions. The Federal Reserve Bank created by the Federal Reserve Bank Act of 1913 shall be dissolved within three years in such a manner as determined by a Joint Committee of the House Committee of Financial Services and Senate comprised of an equal number of Members of the House and Senate.
Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed in a way that would prevent or restrict the private issuance of currency and the use of privately issued currency, the private provision of security and defense, the private arbitration and settlement of disputes, or the freedom of education, communication, and commerce, and any other actions between willing parties.
Article IV. State Suffrage
In order to assure compliance with Article V, which mandates that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate - the only item that may not be amended - the seventeenth amendment of 1913 which removed the right of the state legislatures to choose their own Senators is hereby repealed and rescinded by this amendment. The legislative body of each state is hereby authorized to select and determine the method of selecting and recalling its own Senators, and to revise such method as it deems necessary or expedient. Should a State Legislature fail to select a Senator or Senators within 30 days of a Senate vacancy. The Governor of such state shall appoint a Senator or Senators until the State Legislature can complete its election process.
Article V. Restriction of Federal Powers
The President may not create new laws through executive order, nor may the federal courts expand federal powers to exceed those expressly enumerated in the Constitution. The terms “welfare”, “equality”, and “commerce” may not be construed in a way that grants the federal government additional powers and functions that are not specifically enumerated, nor may terms such as “arms” and “militia” be construed to deny the states and sovereign individuals every available means to secure themselves, their associates, and their properties from losses and damages, especially those which could result from federal tyranny.
A declaration of war by Congress shall be required for any federal military or police action or for appropriation of funds to said use, and shall specify the state or organized body that is the enemy, the casus belli or casus foederis requiring its issuance, the commencement date, the appropriations of money, and the terms for its conclusion. The identification of the enemy shall be sufficiently explicit to allow persons of common understanding to recognize them, and not be left to executive officials to define the boundaries of who is included.
The federal government shall have no jurisdiction over torts and contracts unless expressly authorized by this Constitution. Every crime must have at least one identifiable and unwilling victim, and the objective of any law must be to compensate such victim, or his estate, for specific losses and damages through payment by the aggressor. Any law in violation of any of these principles is null and void.
No legislative act or provision thereof shall have the force of law, nor shall the federal government engage in, tax, subsidize, restrict, or advance any activity or social, business, professional, commercial, financial or industrial enterprise, unless the constitutional authority for it is explicitly cited, verifiable by proving an unbroken chain of logical derivation. No public official shall be granted special treatment, or immunity from the same regulations and remedies as those to which any other citizen is subject.
No federal or international body may override the actions of any State unless expressly and specifically authorized in this Constitution. Since the Constitution is a compact wherein the State is Principal and the federal government is Agent, the State shall retain the power to nullify federal laws and federal actions that are not expressly authorized by this Constitution. In addition, the legislatures or Supreme Courts of ten states or one fifth of the states, whichever is less, may recall federal officers and magistrates, initiate impeachment proceedings against same, or determine if a federal program or body is not within its scope of authority, in which case it must be immediately dissolved.
All rights derived from this Constitution are immunities against actions or restrictions by public officials, not entitlements to receive a service or benefit. On all Constitutional issues, precedents may only be regarded as persuasive and never binding, and binding stare decisis shall not be used as a rule of construction. Jurors must be randomly selected from the general body of citizens. They may not be asked about their knowledge, experience, or opinions about the law in voir dire. They must be unanimous to convict but not to acquit, and failure to convict shall be deemed acquittal. Juries must be fully informed of their right to judge the law as well as the facts and remedies of the case.
