Andrew Napolitano: Trumps Efforts to Fight Crime are Baseless. Supreme Ct Made it Clear; Public safety Isn't a federal function, Feds Can't Supplant States or Tell Them how to Keep their Streets Safe

From [HERE] and [HERE] When President Trump decided to federalize the D.C. Metro Police Department for the 32 days permitted by the 1973 home rule statute, he attempted to supplant its lawful police chief with a federal bureaucrat, which a federal court stopped. Now, he is apparently trying to find ways to take over the police departments of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Can he legally do so? In a word: NO.

In two landmark cases from the mid-1990s, U.S. v. Lopez and Printz v. U.S., the Supreme Court reaffirmed the sovereignty of the states and their primacy in matters of public safety. The Court made it clear that the feds cannot tell the states how to keep their streets safe or commandeer their assets or supplant them in matters of public safety. This is Madison’s subsidiarity principle brought up to date.

While the District of Columbia is actually owned by Congress, which gave the president his 32-day window to commandeer D.C. police to assist federal functions, since public safety is not a federal function, Trump’s efforts to clean up the streets and arrest the folks he says are thugs and brawlers are without a constitutional basis.

Human freedom comes about by limiting government, not expanding it. And freedom prospers when established processes are followed. If the government can do as it wishes in the name of public safety, who will protect us from the government? [MORE]