Louisiana State Representative Danny McCormick recently lamented in an e-mail to supporters that 57 Republicans voted against Rep Thomas Massie’s amendment back in January to block the federal requirement that automobiles include a kill switch:  ‘to prohibit the use of funds made available by this Act to implement section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, including any requirements enabling or supporting vehicle “kill switch” technology, and to block federal spending for the execution or enforcement of such authorities.’ [Congress.gov].

A little background on the kill switch is in order for those unfamiliar with the controversy:

‘Section 24220 is about advanced impaired-driving prevention technology. It directs NHTSA to create a standard for passive systems that can detect or prevent impaired driving. NHTSA’s rulemaking process has focused on performance requirements, technology readiness, testing, and how this type of safety technology could be implemented in future vehicles.

‘ . . . The federal impaired-driving prevention mandate is generally focused on:

1. 1. Impaired driving prevention: Detecting signs of impairment through passive technology.
   2. Vehicle safety intervention: Preventing or limiting operation when impairment is detected.
   3. Public safety: Reducing crashes related to impaired driving’ (Morgan Hightower, ‘Kill Switch Law in Cars: What the Mandate Really Means),’ Track Hawk GPS.

This kind of intrusive federal mandate that could potentially stop someone from using their own vehicle rightly alarms Rep McCormick and many others (for instance, what recourse will people have if the system is mistaken about someone’s impairment level?).  Several basic rights recognized in the Louisiana Constitution would be violated in such a proposal:

-The right to due process of law (Article 1, Section 2):  ‘No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, except by due process of law.’  Placing some kind of automated system in one’s car that decides whether he can use it would deprive him of liberty and property without any kind of trial.

-The rights of the accused (Art. 1, Sec. 13):  ‘When any person has been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation or commission of any offense, he shall be advised fully of the reason for his arrest or detention, his right to remain silent, his right against self incrimination, his right to the assistance of counsel and, if indigent, his right to court appointed counsel.’  An automated kill switch system makes it impossible to contest the charge that one is impaired, serving, for all intents and purposes, to force one to self-incriminate.

-The right to a trial to answer the charges levelled against him (Art. 1, Sec. 16):  ‘Every person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and is entitled to a speedy, public, and impartial trial in the parish where the offense or an element of the offense occurred, unless venue is changed in accordance with law.  No person shall be compelled to give evidence against himself.  An accused is entitled to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him, to compel the attendance of witnesses, to present a defense, and to testify in his own behalf.’  An automatic kill switch system presumes that a person is guilty, and denies him a trial in which he may exonerate himself of the charge of impairment.  Under such a system, he is furthermore compelled to give evidence against himself by being forced to submit to passive technology that determines whether he is impaired or not.

This scheme would also violate Amendments 4-7 of the US Constitution.

This sort of abusive federal overreach shows how relevant John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Address remains.  It was first presented in South Carolina on July 26, 1831; we have therefore just passed its 195th anniversary.  In the Address, Calhoun, who reached the office of Vice President but also served in various other federal offices including US senator for South Carolina, provides the historical and constitutional justification for the right of the States to shield their citizens from infractions committed by the federal government.  A major pillar of his argument is found near the beginning of the Address:

‘The great and leading principle is, that the General Government emanated from the people of the several States, forming distinct political communities, and acting in their separate and sovereign capacity, and not. from all of the people forming one aggregate political community; that the Constitution of the United States is, in fact, a compact, to which each State is a party, in the character already described; and that the several States, or parties, have a right to judge of its infractions; and in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of power not delegated, they have the right, in the last resort, to use the language of the Virginia Resolutions, ” to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.” This right of interposition, thus solemnly asserted by the State of Virginia, be it called what it may, – State-right, veto, nullification, or by any other name, – I conceive to be the fundamental principle of our system, resting on facts historically as certain as our revolution itself, and deductions as simple and demonstrative as that of any political or moral truth whatever; and I firmly believe that on its recognition depend the stability and safety of our political institutions’ [akhilamar.com].

A mandate as far-reaching and intrusive as the one being discussed must be opposed by the States.  As Calhoun, Jefferson, Madison, and others have said, it is a State’s duty to protect her people from federal abuses.  The kill switch mandate clearly is such an abuse of federal power.

The State governments will have various options to oppose this measure, but a very simple one is to provide the funds needed for anyone who buys a vehicle implanted with this sort of devious device at the federal government’s behest to have it removed and the vehicle patched as needed to allow it to run without it.

Rep McCormick vowed to fight this in his e-mail.  We wish him and any other allies well.  VP Calhoun has left them a valuable tool in the Fort Hill Address.  Hopefully they will make good use of it.

Thank you for reading The Hayride!