By Ken Pxton, State Representative, District 70

This week, I participated in the Tenth Amendment Town Hall event in Plano hosted by the Texas Conservative Coalition (the conservative caucus of the Texas Legislature). The federal government has recently wielded excessive power over the states, as demonstrated by trillion-dollar bailouts, record deficits, a proposed government takeover of health care, job killing environmental regulations and looming tax increases. This forum served as an opportunity to explore solutions to restore Texas’ constitutional rights and to limit the growing power and influence of the federal government.

The Town Hall featured a keynote address by author, constitutional scholar, and Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano. This event also included three panel discussions entitled State Actions to Restore the Tenth Amendment, Requiring Congress to Balance the Budget, and Nullification: What it means, and is it an option for states? Nationally-prominent constitutional scholars and conservative state legislators joined Congressman Louie Gohmert, Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, and Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett at the event. Additionally, this event brought together conservative groups from across the state, including many Tea Party organizations, Americans for Prosperity, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, and Concerned Women for America, just to name a few. The meeting drew a crowd of over 500 people.

I believe that the incredible turnout at this town hall demonstrates the importance of these issues to Texans. The insistence of the federal government on pushing overreaching policies is only going to increase our determination to enforce our constitutional rights at the state level.

Videos of the town hall will be posted soon on the TCC website at www.txcc.org.