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ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) today announced the launch of an enhanced State Sovereignty Project devoted to persuading all 50 states to aggressively exercise their authority to serve as a check on the ever-growing and often extra-constitutional power of the federal government.

CFIF’s State Sovereignty Project employs a grassroots-driven approach to encourage governmental authorities closest to the people – governors, state and local legislatures, state attorneys general and other state constitutional officers – to reclaim and exercise the structural powers granted to them by the U.S. Constitution as a bulwark against federal encroachments on state sovereignty and erosion of the individual liberties of the people they serve.  Specifically, CFIF will employ and enhance its numerous forms of paid advertising, earned media, social media and editorial materials, among other methods, as part of an ongoing broad education effort to promote localized grassroots activism.

“With increasing frequency, the federal government seeks to expand its constitutionally limited powers and authority well beyond what the Founders envisioned,” said CFIF President Jeffrey Mazzella. “Yet all too often state and local elected officials who are closest to the people are acting more as cheerleaders for centralized federal policies advocated by the leaders of their respective national political parties than as a necessary check on expanded federal power. The result has been an erosion in the defense of state sovereignty and loss of individual liberty.”

In addition to federally mandated education policy, obstruction of common sense state efforts to stem and deter voter fraud and even federal efforts to influence what food we eat and automobiles we drive, to name a few, CFIF pointed to ObamaCare and various actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) that extend beyond its authority as prime examples of federal overreach that need to be countered. 

“The U.S. Constitution not only provides for a system of checks and balances within the federal government, but also a check by the various states on the federal government and its thirst to expand beyond its limited enumerated powers,” Mazzella said.

“While we are delighted to see some states start to fight back against some of those federal power grabs, those efforts are too few and far between,” Mazzella said, referring to the involvement of various states in challenging ObamaCare and similar efforts against some, but not all, suspect EPA actions. 

“To fully protect their sovereignty, their economies and the individual liberties of the people they serve, all 50 states and their respective leaders have a duty to act with more frequency and consistency against increasing federal power and control, regardless of the ideological form or partisan shape it takes,” Mazzella continued.  “That will only happen with sustained and informed public pressure, which CFIF seeks to encourage and inspire with this initiative.” 

Founded in 1998, CFIF is a constitutional and free market advocacy organization with more than 250,000 activists and supporters nationwide.

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