The counterplan solves and revitalizes federalism.

After more than 40 years of getting away with constitutional “murder,” Congress expanded its “authority” over intoxicating substances yet again in 1970, superseding the Marihuana Tax Act with the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, also known as the Controlled Substances Act. By this time, the shampoo formula had virtually supplanted the legitimate constitutional amendment process.

Meanwhile, reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, state leaders sacrificed duty for dollars, resulting in a chronic case of constitutional amnesia about preserving the healthy tension and balance of power by persistently pulling on the federalism tug-of-war rope.

Congress Stole Power It Ought to Give Back

Now that the states are pushing back in a concerted fashion, however, Congress is considering legislation that purports to grant “authority” to the states to regulate marijuana—a power that was never delegated to the federal government but was from the outset reserved to the states.

The U.S. House recently approved a budget amendment to block the Justice Department from interfering with states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Because this budget maneuver would only apply for the 2020 fiscal year, several members of Congress are sponsoring the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act, S.3032.

The bill would recognize the legalization of cannabis and the U.S. state laws that have legalized it through their legislatures or citizen initiatives. Strengthening the Tenth Amendment is not just a noble sentiment for a message bill, it’s the sworn constitutional duty of all state and federal officers. However, strengthening the Tenth Amendment means honoring the constitutional restraints on congressional power, not “entrusting states” with regulatory authority that was theirs to begin with, and never in Congress’ power to give.

Imagine your reaction if your youngest child decided not only to blatantly violate his curfew, but also began ordering the bedtimes for his older siblings and his parents. Now imagine that this rambunctious child thinks better of his conduct and tells you he is going to let you, the parents, decide for yourself what your bedtime will be. How magnanimous is that?

We have come full circle from where the people delegated to their national government only “few and defined” powers, and reserved all other to the states or the people themselves; to a national government that has ignored those express limits and usurped the powers of the states; now, to a national government that purports to grant “authority” to the states that it never had under the Constitution in the first place.

The Way Forward: Real Federalism

Enlightened by his study of man’s relation to government throughout recorded history, Thomas Jefferson warned, “A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for the second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.”

Fortunately, it’s not too late. Our friends on the left are shaking the cobwebs off of federalism, and taking real, bold action to restore state powers important to them. Perhaps it’s past time for us to awake and arise, join with our friends across the political spectrum, repudiate the shampoo formula of federal centralization, and restore the governing balance of powers which magnifies the voice of the American people and makes government actually work for them again.

If our friends on the left can restore state power over marijuana policy, imagine what restoring governing balance to the states over “all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people” would do for the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of government.

The formula rediscovered by our friends on the left for restoring the governing voice of the people is not easy, but it is simple, as stated by Thomas Jefferson in 1791: “It is important to strengthen the State governments; … it must be done by the states themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the general government.”

So, to state leaders, as well as the people who elect them, here are your instructions for the federalism formula, the only known antidote to the federal shampoo formula: erect barriers at the constitutional line, lather, rinse, repeat.