Marshall Sanford: “I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I wanted to join him just for a few moments to simply applaud the way in which…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I wanted to join him just for a few moments to simply applaud the way in which he is raising this issue tonight. I think it is incredibly important because it was Jefferson who actually said ``that the normal course of things was for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.'' And you think about the significance of the 10th Amendment and what it says. Its words are real simple: ``Those powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' This is a gut-check moment on the degree to which we really believe in the 10th Amendment, and we really believe in a limited Federal Government. So I would make very quickly three points: one, what you are talking about tonight is ultimately about this larger question of whether States are simply proxies, if you will, worker bees, if you will, for the Federal Government and nothing more than that. Are all decisions to be made in simply Washington, D.C., or can they actually be made at the local level? This issue that you are raising is ultimately not about marijuana, but it is about local voice and local control.…”