Amid the bad news this summer of racial tensions in Charlottesville and biblical-like floods in Houston and preening saber rattling between Pyongyang and Washington, a dangerous below-the-radar trend has been developing about which all who believe that the Constitution means what it says should be concerned. It is the reckless influence upon local law enforcement coming from the Trump administration.
When the states joined the union, they gave certain powers to the federal government, and they kept others to themselves.
The powers surrendered are articulated in the Constitution, and the 10th Amendment clarifies the truism that those powers not surrendered have been retained.
The traditional terminology for the powers retained is the “police power.” The police power does not refer to police as in cops on the streets, but it does refer to states’ powers to make laws and policies that are often enforced by cops on the streets.
In constitutional parlance, police power is the right and obligation of each state to legislate for the health, safety, welfare and morality of people in the state. Read more here.