Here are some cases where Idaho states rights were protected:

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fischer/080520
http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2008/11/20/rockybarker/liberals_ur...
The 10th amendment says: "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."
The Tenth Amendment sets forth one of our most cherished rights, and for good reasons. When states and local communities take the lead on policy, the people are that much closer to the policymakers, and policymakers are that much more accountable to the people. Few Americans have spoken with their president; many have spoken with their mayor.
Empowering state and local government leaders to solve their own problems often leads to better policies. These leaders are closer to those affected by decisions, and more likely to understand the nuances of their community's particular challenges. Solutions that work well in Boston may be completely inappropriate in Boise.
The greatest virtue of the Tenth Amendment is that it embodies the wisdom of checks and balances. We tend to think of checks and balances in the context of our national executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Yet the tension between federal, state, and local governments is just as important.

The state of education in our country also demonstrates the Tenth Amendment's strengths and weaknesses. Nothing embodies the idea of equality of opportunity more than education. The Tenth Amendment ensures that education is funded primarily at the state and local levels, yet the federal government has intruded in the field of education...a function never given it by the Constitution.

A nationally controlled education system would be a disaster. Not only would it likely lead to an expansive bureaucracy and stifling regulations, but it would also deny us much of the wisdom, innovation, and accountability that often comes from local communities.

The federal government exercises enumerated power, most notably that in Article I, Section 8. The states, by contrast, exercise residual and unenumerated power, fundamentally the basic police power to protect the health, welfare, safety, and morals of the people. And it is the people of each state, as the beneficiaries of the Tenth Amendment's final phrase, who decide in what measure and manner the reserved powers of their state shall be exercised.

The importance of the Tenth Amendment ebbs and flows. The willingness of the Court to breathe life into its words may depend on the public esteem in which state government is held.

During the Rehnquist Court, the Tenth Amendment experienced something of a revival. In Printz v. United States, the Court invoked the Tenth Amendment to prohibit Congress from commandeering state personnel in the execution of a federal gun control program. Congress appears to have broad latitude in imposing costs incidental to the implementation of federal directives, so long as it does not cross the line and actually tell state officials what to do.

The Supreme Court itself has moved to restrict the foremost concern of the Tenth Amendment — the preservation of the state police power. Yet the Tenth Amendment serves vital constitutional values. It protects, above all, the possibility of diverse state approaches to the nation's most volatile social problems. And in so doing, it respects regional differences as well. It allows change in America to assume a gradual, evolutionary, and democratic course — one quite different from change achieved through the convulsive stroke of the constitutional pen. It was not intended by the framers to dominate our constitutional landscape. But neither was it placed in our founding document to be forgotten."

The powers delegated to the Federal Government by the states and the people under the U.S. Constitution, for the most part, are as follows:
1. To collect taxes on imports and excise taxes on commodities of home production (Not on wages, salaries, or capital gains.) 2. To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. 3. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization. 4. To coin money. 5. To establish Post Offices. 6. To grant copyrights and patents. 7. To constitute Federal Courts as needed (inferior to the Supreme Court.) 8. To declare war.

On November 22, 1994, thirty Republican Governors adopted the Williamsburg Resolve, which, in essence, said, “Federal action (the Federal Government) has exceeded the clear bounds of its jurisdiction (authority) under the Constitution and thus violated the Rights guaranteed to the People.” The United States Supreme Court has abandoned its constitutional role by allowing the Federal Government to unconstitutionally extend its rules and regulations into virtually every area of public and private life, clearly in violation of the Tenth Amendment.

State Senator Charles Duke (CO) initiated the Tenth Amendment Resolution Campaign, which was to get as many state legislatures as possible to adopt a resolution informing the President, the Vice President, and the key leaders in Congress that their state is claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment and demanding that the Federal Government immediately end any mandates that are beyond the powers given to it by the Federal Constitution.

In 1994, the following states joined Colorado in passing a Tenth Amendment Resolution: California, Missouri, Hawaii and Illinois. Oklahoma passed the resolution in one house, and Resolutions were introduced in Ohio, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Seven other states; Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wyoming planned to introduce the Resolution when their Legislature next convened.

Unfortunately, the Tenth Amendment Resolution campaign has been in limbo until recently when Representative Charles Key (OK) reintroduced the Resolution in the lower house in Oklahoma and successfully got it passed again in that house by a lopsided vote of 92-3.

Ever wonder why the Constitution is only taught as part of a government course in High School and not a full semester class? My opinion is that if you don't know what your rights are, you can't argue against them. The governments wants to be a mysterious red tape business for the average American. They want you to feel lost and insecure so that their control over you is firmer. It is Knowledge and Wisdom that frees us from the grasp of passive slavery.

Below is a wonderful article about our Tenth Amendment rights to have the states govern themselves (as it has always been but not enforced lately). Enjoy your education

Now a movement toward revitalizing the Tenth Amendment Resolution campaign has risen to get more states to pass the Resolution, with the understanding that the powers referred to in the Tenth Amendment are clearly based on powers set forth and defined in our Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution. We introduce the “Constitutional Ensign to the Nation” as a working instrument that graphically illustrates the principles that guided our Founding Fathers when they wrote our Constitution.

To provide some strength of enforcement to the Tenth Amendment Resolution, hopefully, some of the states that pass the Resolution will have an Attorney General who still remembers their oath of office and will have the courage to file a legal action against the Federal Government for their unlawful and unconstitutional violation of states’ rights.
http://americanleadershipnetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&a......