Amendment X of the Bill of Rights... Let's talk about it.

[Skidmore]

Amendment X
The 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.

What are the "powers" currently held by the people? Between those held by the federal and state governments to be theirs, what has been left for the people? And how does this square with the idea that the "people are the government" in this nation?

[kiahzero]

1. This doesn't mean what you think it means.

It just means that the several States have police powers - i.e., they can do anything they aren't specifically prohibited from doing.

[Skidmore]

2. What are we specifically not prohibited from doing these days?

How narrow or broad is the power held by the individual.

[kiahzero]

3. It's not really a power held by individuals.

It's the powers held by the states. Here's the way it works in a nutshell: the federal government has certain enumerated powers, which are the extent of federal power, whereas the state governments have police power, which is to say that they can do anything that isn't specifically barred.

[shield20]

4. so we would need to check the State constitutions to see? nt

[Skidmore]

5. "Or the people" in that sentence does not define the people as

either part of the state or the federal government. It seems to me that "the people" are treated as separate from both government entities and my reading is that whatever powers not claimed by the federal govt or the state government belongs to the people.

[kiahzero]

6. It may seem that way, but it's not.

Primarily because the state governments claim all of the power not claimed by the federal government, so there is none left over. A police power is pretty much the ability to do whatever you see fit not subject to external limitations, unlike the federal government that has to justify its use of power in one of the enumerated powers (or claim an inherent power).

It may seem that way to you, but there's a reason law school is three years long - the law is complicated.